Theme Parks & Themed Entertainment

Ruminations

Roger Colton is back from Anaheim with a column featuring both a trip report and a Disney topic for a change!

Published

22 years ago

March 27, 2003

Very nice to see everyone, and yes, Jim Hill really does exist. Or if not, those folks at WDI really do know animatronics!

I tagged along with Jim and Chuck on their three Disneyland tours. Hope you enjoyed them. Heck, even I learned something new along the way as well.

The Meet ‘n’ Greet went well also, but we all missed Michelle and Alice who were both home with one of the many colds making the rounds. Thanks to better living through modern chemistry, I managed to enjoy the long weekend, if not the airline flights. Sinus troubles are just plain no fun at altitude.

Some observations from four days at the DLR:

1. DCA was busier than I have ever seen it. Aladdin may cost a bunch of money every day, but the 6:30 show on Friday was packed with a full house. Michele and I had seats in the rear of the orchestra level and enjoyed it. Give props to the Genie as he steals the show with all of the best lines. And despite what others have said, for the average guy and gal, the show does work. As well as any touring company of numerous Broadway musicals I’ve seen, the cast and crew did just fine.

2. We took the time to enjoy the wine tasting in DCA also on Friday afternoon. For $7 each, we got to sample four California wines with Elizabeth as our host. She was not only informative, but also entertaining. The cost was comparable to a single glass of wine, and the four in our group all gave her and the experience high marks.

3. “Flik’s Fun Fair” was also well received, and while we didn’t have any six-year olds as testers, we all gave in and did the Tuck & Roll Bumper Cars. For the younger crowd, the speed is just fine. The same for Heimlich’s Chew Chew Train. Cute, and even flavorful with a spritz from the watermelon.

4. Cheerleaders. Like Indiana Jones and Nazi’s. Maybe it was all raging teen hormones or ego’s out of control, but I was bumped, jostled and just plain assaulted by the gaggles traveling Disneyland with events held in the Festival of Fools and Fantasyland Theater areas. To quote Stan Lee, “’nuff said!”

5. Add me to the folks who like the restored soundtrack for “Small World.” Nice touch.

6. Once again, Al Lutz is going on about the possibility of a Dinner Train operation on the Disneyland Railroad. Riding and observing the railroad in operation just continues to show how and why a Dinner Train will never be profitable. You just can’t feed enough people and keep them comfortable aboard the Disneyland Railroad. Building an entirely new passenger train with modern heating and air conditioning along with proper onboard sanitation facilities and food handling will cost way too much. Hiring an outside consultant to run the thing is a bad idea, and one Walt would have laughed long and well over. Come on Disneyland management; let this idea just die quietly before throwing good money after bad. I’m not just blowing smoke here; I do have some practical knowledge on the subject. Better to spend it on something practical like renovations to the exterior on the Tiki Room instead…

7. Spring break should be a time when more attractions are opened than closed. As this was the quote beginning of that period, it was amusing to note everything down for rehab or just plain closed.

8. I managed to actually eat relatively healthy for a change and somewhat enjoyed it. Who knew? Everything from the Breakfast with Chip & Dale at the Storyteller’s Café in the Grand Californian to the Rancho De Zocalo in Frontierland offered something tasty and healthy.

Anyway, that’s the end of the major notes from the trip. One of the nicer four days I’ve spent there in a while actually.

Here’s the topic for this week’s column: Pins. From the consumer side of the story…

Let me start by saying, “Hi, my name is Roger, and I am a pin collector.” I’m addicted.

It started innocently enough when Disney was giving away “free” pins.

“Come on, kid! Try it! The first one is free!”

Now, I know that the concept of Disney giving anything away for “free” must seem somewhat unusual. If the truth were told, it was not “free” after all. You got something by buying a Disneyland admission.

Back in the day (1985), it was Disneyland’s 30th Anniversary. To promote attendance at the Park, some of the better minds in Marketing had come up with a good idea that would offer prizes to every 30th guest.

As guests entered at the gates, everyone received a ticket from the machine indicating what prize they had won. There were lots of folks with a “Sorry – not a Winner” tickets, but there were many different levels of winners. Minor prizes included these pins and free Disneyland passes. (In 1986, prizes included popcorn and ice cream, so that every guest was a winner.)

If you were very lucky, your ticket read “Gift Giver Extraordinare” and you got the chance to head down Main Street to the hub where an oversize birthday cake sat. (Right where the “Partners” statue is today.) Once your ticket was verified, you went up on stage with the event host and got your chance to pull the lever and see what you won. I don’t recall all of the prizes, but I do know that one was an oversize plush classic Mickey and Minnie set. (Two friends managed to win those. I never got more than the pins even though I went over 30 times to the Park that year.)

Once a day during the yearlong promotion, Disneyland gave away a brand new GM Geo automobile. (The cars were small enough that they fit inside the big cake and came up from below when the winner was chosen.) One woman I saw as the winner mentioned that she really needed a new car, as hers had literally died that morning on the way into the Park!

Back to the pins… In 1985, the pins given away were one for each of the lands of the Park. They were Main Street, Adventureland, New Orleans Square, Bear Country, Frontierland, Fantasyland and Tomorrowland. And so, pin trading began. If you already had one, why not trade another guest for one you did not have?

The pins were not without controversy. Some had sharp points that might hurt younger guests, and were replaced with rounded, friendlier versions. (Specifically, Tomorrowland had Donald with a spaceship with a pointed nosecone, and Frontierland had a sheriff’s star badge with points.) And over the two years, designed were slightly changed with new characters and or colors. (New Orleans Square featured both Mickey and Brer Fox with saxophones as an example.)

I’m not exactly sure when Disney started selling cloisonné pins. I do know that for the longest time, friends and I lamented the dearth of new pins as well as the limited variety on sale. Long before the Super Traders made it the fashion; we bought photographers vests (sold at the Adventureland Bazaar for all of $13 dollars as compared to $48 last weekend) and loaded them with our pins and buttons. At one point, I stopped wearing it because it was just so heavy!

When pin trading really and officially took off, I already had a fair sized collection of Disneyland Cast Member and special event pins, along with everything else. The trip to Florida in 1999 added a bunch more. Family and friends visiting various parks and stores helped with their contributions. When pin bags came along, I got a nice one with the DCA logo on it. Held all of my pins, some 500 or more of them. (You should get that I’m leading up to something here…)

It almost came to an end on one morning in March of 2001.

I had taken my pin bag to work the day before. And when I came home, for reasons that I will never remember, I left it in the car, in front of my home, along with a backpack. And I committed that most unpardonable of sins… I did not lock one of the car doors.

When I came out to the car to go to work that morning, I spotted a box of compact discs on the ground outside my door. Recognizing several of them as Irish music from my collection, I immediately became apprehensive. Those had been in the back seat last night. Going to the car, it became obvious. Someone had opened the door, taken the pins and the backpack (that along with a CD player, had about a dozen of my Disneyland Forever CD’s).

I give the thief some small credit. He or she took one of the Irish CD’s out of the disc player and left it with the others. I guess they liked Disneyland music more than Irish music. I filed a police report, and the responding officer mentioned that there had been a recent rash of auto and home burglaries in the area where doors were just checked to see if one was open. If they found one, they took what ever looked like it could be sold quickly.

In my case, the pin bag probably looked like a computer laptop bag. And the CD player was a cheap model, maybe $35 bucks. I posted a Lost Item and Reward poster all over the neighborhood, but never got any responses. I still check shops around town from time to time, but imagine the stuff ended up in the trash or at a flea market. I have a small hope that it’s in some kid’s bedroom some place.

Naturally, I was devastated. The loss represented some 15 years of my life and well over $2000 in value.

I could not think about buying new pins for some time. A search of eBay showed many of the pins I had lost were out there and available, but many were at an inflated price. (I also looked for someone in my area selling pins that I once had. No such luck…)

In the end, it was all just stuff, and it really was not the end of the world.

It had just seemed like it at the time.

What got me back into it was my nephews. I started them collecting pins on a visit to DCA a couple of months before the loss. They were collecting just for the fun of it, and really liked trading with cast members as well as with me. I see it more through their eyes as their passion now. And I must admit that I do get a kick out of seeing them descend on an unsuspecting CM like a roving pack of hungry wolves as they look for that new trade!

Thanks to them, today I have a small and yet interesting collection. There will always be the memories associated with those lost pins. Perhaps that’s the best way to think of the pins. After all, they are more souvenirs than they are collectibles; something I wish more people would remember…

Two of my favorite pin moments involved children and their parents, with both new to pin trading. The first was a daughter and mother who saw me trade with a CM on Main Street. They asked if they could look at my lanyard (How’s that for polite?), and then traded for three pins. They said this made their day as their experiences had been with several rude pin traders before. No one wanted to trade for any thing they had, saying that all they had were common pins. I didn’t mind trading with them as the pins on my lanyard were there for that reason. In the end, we all went away feeling better.

The other trade involved a family who had just gotten their lanyards about thirty minutes before I met them. Pins were neat, but they didn’t understand about trading with anyone. After a short introduction, we traded a few pins, and then were off in search of cast members to trade with. That just made my trip.

However, pin trading is not all smiles and sunshine. It’s got it’s own share of gangsters. I hope that there is a special theme park in hell with a corner just for pin sharks or the aggressive traders. My idea of pin trading is not badgering some child to get that collectible pin to fill in the gap in your bags. Another irritation are the clowns who wear multiple lanyards, and won’t trade anything. Some people just never got the concept of trading versus hoarding. That social part of pins is something we are all supposed to enjoy. It’s just too bad that there are a few folks out there who have forgotten that.

This last weekend I enjoyed trading with all kinds of folks from guests new to pins to CM’s to even a few traders with books. Sharks are still out there including one bozo with an entire page of the recent Surfboard Jessica pins he was looking to make big trades for. I almost wanted to call security and have him escorted out of the park as a scumbag pin dealer rather than a trader.

My wife even managed to make a final trade as we were waiting to catch the plane home. In the terminal at Long Beach a family was looking over it’s lanyards and she took the time to make a trade with one of the children for a Shere Khan pin to add to her Disney cats collection. She did well over the weekend adding to her collection of travel related Disney pins along with Winnie the Pooh and holidays.

I’m happy to admit there are new pleasures for me as pins are being added now and then. A recent obsession was Lilo & Stitch pins, and the new Disneyland Railroad pins. And on eBay, I finally managed to replace the complete set of those “free” pins that started it all.

Perhaps it’s not such a bad thing to be addicted to after all.

And darned if the folks at Disney don’t keep coming out with interesting new pins…

Now if they would only come out with the T-shirt that says “Will Trade Wife For Disney Pins!”

Two weblinks for pins:

Official Disney Pin Trading Web site

Dizpins, unofficial site for news and information for Disney pin collectors

Roger’s wife also collects travel related and classic Pooh pins. She owns (and wore it last weekend!) the “Will Trade Husband For Disney Pins” T-shirt. He bought it for her.

Television & Shows

The Untold Story of Super Soap Weekend at Disney-MGM Studios: How Daytime TV Took Over the Parks

Published

1 week ago

April 24, 2025

Jim Hill

Super Soap Weekends at Disney-MGM Studios

A long time ago in a galaxy that … Well, to be honest, wasn’t all that far away. This was down in Florida after all. But if you traveled to the WDW Resort, you could then experience “Star Wars Weekends.” Which ran seasonally at Disney’s Hollywood Studios Disney World from 1997 to 2015.

Mind you, what most folks don’t remember is the annual event that effectively plowed the road for “Star Wars Weekends.” Which was “Super Soap Weekend.” That seasonal offering — which allowed ABC soap fans to get up-close with their favorite performers from “All My Children,” “General Hospital,” “One Life to Live” and “Port Charles” — debuted at that same theme park the year previous (1996).

So how did this weekend-long celebration of daytime drama (which drew tens of thousands of people to Orlando every Fall for 15 years straight) come to be?

Michael Eisner’s Daytime TV Origins and a Theme Park Vision

Super Soap Weekend was the brainchild of then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner. His career in media began with short stints at NBC and CBS, but it truly took off in 1964 when he joined ABC as the assistant to Leonard Goldberg, who was the network’s national programming director at the time.

Eisner quickly advanced through the ranks. By 1971, he had become Vice President of Daytime Programming at ABC. That meant he was on the scene when One Life to Live joined the lineup in July 1968 and when All My Children made its debut in January 1970. Even after being promoted to Senior Vice President of Prime Time Programming in 1976, Eisner stayed close to the daytime division and often recruited standout soap talent for ABC’s primetime shows.

Fast forward nearly two decades to July 31, 1995. The Walt Disney Company announced that it would acquire ABC/Cap Cities in a $19 billion deal. Although the acquisition wasn’t finalized until February 1996, Eisner was already thinking ahead. He wanted to use the stars of All My Children, One Life to Live, and General Hospital to draw people to Disney’s theme parks.

He had seen how individual soap stars were drawing huge mall crowds across America since the late 1970s. Now he wanted to bring dozens of them together for something much bigger.

Super Soap Weekend Takes Over Disney-MGM Studios

The very first Super Soap Weekend was announced in June 1996, just a few months after the ABC deal closed. The event was scheduled for October 19 and 20 at Disney-MGM Studios and was a massive success.

The weekend featured panel discussions, autograph sessions, and photo opportunities with the stars of ABC’s daytime dramas. Thousands of fans packed the park for the chance to meet their favorite actors. Due to the overwhelming response, the event became an annual tradition and was eventually moved to Veterans Day weekend each November to better accommodate attendees.

Longtime fans like Nancy Stadler, her mom Mary, and their close friend Angela Ragno returned year after year, making the event a personal tradition and building lifelong memories.

West Coast Events and the ABC Soap Opera Bistro

Disney even tried to recreate the event out west. Two Super Soap Weekends were held at Disneyland Resort, one in April 2002 and another in June 2003.

At Disney’s California Adventure, Eisner also introduced the ABC Soap Opera Bistro, a themed dining experience that opened in February 2001. Guests could dine inside recreated sets from shows like General Hospital and All My Children, including Kelly’s Diner and the Chandler Mansion. The Bistro closed in November 2002, but for fans, it offered a rare opportunity to step into the world of their favorite soaps.

SOAPnet, Port Charles, and the Expansion of Daytime TV at Disney

Eisner’s enthusiasm for soaps extended beyond the parks. In January 2000, he launched SOAPnet, a cable channel dedicated to prime time replays of ABC’s daytime dramas.

During his time at Disney, General Hospital also received a spin-off series titled Port Charles, which aired from June 1997 to October 2003. The show leaned into supernatural plotlines and was another example of Eisner’s commitment to evolving and expanding the soap genre.

The Final Curtain for Super Soap Weekend

In September 2005, Eisner stepped down after 21 years as head of The Walt Disney Company. Bob Iger, who had previously served as President of ABC and Chief Operating Officer of ABC/Cap Cities, took over as CEO. While Iger had deep ABC credentials, he didn’t share Eisner’s passion for daytime television.

In the fall of 2008, Disney hosted the final Super Soap Weekend at what was then still called Disney-MGM Studios. That same year, the park was rebranded as Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and Disney began shifting away from television-focused experiences.

Within the next five years, the rest of Eisner’s soap legacy faded. One Life to Live was canceled in January 2012. SOAPnet was rebranded as Disney Junior in February 2013. Later that year, All My Children ended its 41-year run on ABC.

Only General Hospital remains on the network today, the last standing soap from the golden age of ABC Daytime.

A New Chapter for Daytime TV and Super Soap Fans

The soap genre may have faded from its former glory, but it’s not gone. On February 24, 2025, CBS premiered a brand-new daytime drama called Beyond the Gates, marking the first new soap launch in years.

Meanwhile, All My Children alum Kelly Ripa has been actively working on a revival. In September 2024, she mentioned a holiday-themed movie set in Pine Valley that would bring back many original cast members. The project was in development for Lifetime, though its current status is unclear.

And what about Super Soap? Fans like Nancy and Angela still hope Disney will bring it back. Even if it only featured the cast of General Hospital, it would be a welcome return for longtime viewers who miss that one weekend a year where the magic of Disney collided with the drama of daytime TV.

If you want to hear firsthand what it was like to be part of Super Soap Weekend, be sure to listen to our I Want That Too podcast interview with actor Colin Egglesfield. He shares behind-the-scenes memories from his days as Josh Madden on All My Children and what it meant to be part of one of the most unique fan events in Disney park history.

History

The Super Bowl & Disney: The Untold Story Behind ‘I’m Going to Disneyland!’

Published

3 months ago

February 6, 2025

Jim Hill

One of the highlights of the Super Bowl isn’t just the game itself—it’s the moment when the winning quarterback turns to the camera and exclaims, “I’m going to Disney World!” This now-iconic phrase has been a staple of post-game celebrations for decades. But where did this tradition begin? Surprisingly, it didn’t originate in a stadium but at a dinner table in 1987, in a conversation involving Michael Eisner, George Lucas, and aviation pioneers Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager.

The Unlikely Beginning of a Marketing Sensation

To understand the origins of this campaign, we have to go back to December 1986, when the Rutan Voyager became the first aircraft to fly around the world without stopping or refueling. Pilots Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager completed the nine-day journey on December 23, 1986, flying over 26,000 miles before landing at Edwards Air Force Base. Their historic achievement earned them national recognition, and just days later, President Ronald Reagan awarded them the Presidential Citizen Medal at the White House.

Meanwhile, Disney was gearing up for the grand opening of Star Tours at Disneyland, set for January 12, 1987. Following its usual playbook of associating major theme park attractions with real-world pioneers, Disney’s PR team invited astronauts Gordon Cooper and Deke Slayton to the launch event. But in a twist, they also invited Rutan and Yeager, who were still making headlines.

A Dinner Conversation That Changed Advertising Forever

After the Star Tours opening ceremony, a private dinner was held with Disney CEO Michael Eisner, George Lucas, and Eisner’s wife, Jane. During the meal, Eisner asked Rutan and Yeager, “You just made history. You traveled non-stop around the planet on a plane without ever refueling. How are you ever going to top that, career-wise? What are you two gonna do next?”

Without hesitation, Jeana Yeager replied, “Well, after being cramped inside that tiny plane for nine days, I’m just glad to be anywhere else. And even though you folks were nice enough to fly us here, invite us to your party… Well, as soon as we finish eating, I’m gonna go over to the Park and ride some rides. I’m going to Disneyland.”

Jane Eisner immediately recognized the power of Yeager’s statement. On the car ride home, she turned to Michael and said, “That’s a great slogan. I think you should use that to promote the theme parks.” Like many husbands, Michael initially dismissed the idea, but Jane persisted. Eventually, Eisner relented and pitched it to his team.

The Super Bowl Connection

With Super Bowl XXI just around the corner, Disney’s PR team saw an opportunity. The game was set for January 25, 1987, at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena—just miles from Disney Studios. What if they convinced the winning quarterback to say, “I’m going to Disneyland” live on-air?

Disney quickly struck a deal with both quarterbacks—Phil Simms of the New York Giants and John Elway of the Denver Broncos—offering each $75,000 to deliver the line if their team won. Simms led the Giants to victory, making history as the first athlete to say, “I’m going to Disney World!” on national television.

A Marketing Triumph

That year’s Super Bowl had the second-highest viewership in television history, with 87 million people watching Simms say the famous line. The next day, Disney turned the clip into a national commercial, cementing the phrase as a marketing goldmine.

Since then, “I’m going to Disneyland” (or Disney World, depending on the commercial) has been a staple of championship celebrations, spanning the NFL, NBA, and even the Olympics. What started as a casual remark at dinner became one of the most successful advertising campaigns in history.

A Lasting Legacy

Jane Eisner’s keen instinct and Disney’s ability to act quickly on a great idea created a tradition that continues to captivate audiences. The “I’m going to Disneyland” campaign remains a testament to the power of spontaneous inspiration and smart marketing, proving that sometimes, the best ideas come from the most unexpected places.

To learn more about Disney’s ties to the world of sports, check out I Want That Too: A Disney History and Consumer Product Podcast.

Television & Shows

How the Creators of South Park Tricked A-List Celebrities to Roast Universal – “Your Studio & You”

Published

4 months ago

January 12, 2025

Jim Hill

Universal Studios has a rich and storied history, but few moments are as peculiar—and as hilariously cutting—as the creation of Your Studio & You. This 14-minute parody film, commissioned in 1995 to celebrate Universal’s new ownership under Seagram’s, brings together an all-star cast, biting humor, and the unmistakable comedic fingerprints of Matt Stone and Trey Parker.

Long before South Park debuted on Comedy Central in 1997, Stone and Parker were already carving out a reputation for their irreverent style, and Your Studio & You perfectly encapsulates their knack for turning even the most corporate project into something delightfully subversive.

Matt Stone & Trey Parker Before South Park

Stone & Parker were already known out in Hollywood as funny guys. Thanks largely to “The Spirit of Christmas,” which was this video greeting card that they’d crafted for a Fox executive – who then distributed this infamously funny thing (which had Our Lord Jesus Christ & Santa Claus literally duking it out for the holiday affections of Cartman, Kenny, Stan & Kyle) to friends & family.

This was the early 1990s. No internet. Each copy of “The Spirit of Christmas” was made on VHS tape and then mailed. Went viral the old-fashioned way. It’s rumored that George Clooney made over 300 copies of “The Spirit of Christmas” and passed these VHS taps along to friends and family.

Things didn’t move as fast as they do today. “The Spirit of Christmas” still became a sensation out West.

Zucker Brothers

Matt & Trey also had other supporters in the entertainment industry. Among them David Zucker, who was one of the members of ZAZ (i.e., Zucker Abrahams Zucker), the talented trio that made “Airplane!” in 1980, “Top Secret!” in 1984 and the three “Naked Gun” movies.

The original “Naked Gun” in 1988
“Naked Gun 2 & 1/2 : The Smell of Fear” in 1991
and “Naked Gun 33 & a 1/3: The Final Insult” in 1994

All five of these parody films had been made for Paramount Pictures. But in the Late Winter / Early Spring of 1995, Universal had persuaded the Zucker Brothers to come over and set up shop in a bungalow on their lower lot. With the hope that – at some point further on down the line – David & his brother Jerry would start making funny films for Universal.

Zucker Brothers featured in "Your Studio and You"

And it’s during this same window of time (We’re now talking April of 1995) that news breaks that Seagrams (Yep, the adult beverage company. Who – at the time – was making an absolute fortune on the sales of wine coolers) was about to buy a majority stake in MCAUniversal. We’re talking control of 80% of that company’s stock. Which would effectively make Seagrams the new owners of Universal Studios.

Edgar Bronfman

And Edgar Bronfman – the owner of Seagrams – knew that Universal had had a tough time with its previous owners – which had been the Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. of Japan. Matsushita had bought MCA back in November of 1990 for $7.5 billion but had never really understood the entertainment industry.

This is why – after repeatedly butting heads with Lew Wasserman & Sidney Sheinberg (i.e., the heads of Universal Studios & the Universal theme park respectively) when it came to creative control of this company – Matsushita decided to wash it hands of the entire enterprise. Agreeing to sell their holdings in MCA to Seagrams for $5.7 billion (effectively taking a nearly $2 billion loss on this investment).

And Bronfman … He knew that some bad feeling had developed between Hollywood’s creative community and the Japanese owners of Universal. The thinking was that executives at Matsushita Electric had just not gotten what it took to make movies & TV shows.

And Edgar? Right from the get-go, he wanted to show that Seagrams was NOT going to be Matsushita Electric Redux. Bronfman was looking for a way to send a clear message to Hollywood’s creative community that Universal’s new owners got it. That they were willing to work with Hollywood to make the best possible movies & TV shows at Universal.

And how did Edgar decide to get this message across? By making a funny movie.

Zucker Commissions Trey Parker for “Your Studio & You”

Mind you, Bronfman himself didn’t make this film. The owner of Seagrams reached out to David Zucker. Who – after initially agreeing to produce this introduction-to-Universal film – then farmed out the production of the actual project to Trey Parker. Who – just two days before shooting was supposed to star on the Universal Lot – persuaded Matt Stone to come help him on this project.

Which brings us to “Your Studio and You.” Which is a parody of an educational film from the 1950s, right down to being shot in black & white and featuring a very generic soundtrack.

Now what’s amazing about watching “Your Studio and You” today is that this 14-minute-long film features some of the biggest names working in Hollywood back in the mid-1990s. We’re talking about people like recent Golden Globe winner Demi Moore, Sylvester Stallone, Michael J. Fox and Angela Lansbury. Not to mention two of the most powerful men in all of Hollywood, Steven Spielberg & Jeffrey Katzenberg.

And what’s especially interesting about watch “Your Studio and You” is that – as you watch these performers go through their paces in this motion pictures (which – most of the time – involves doing some innocuous task while holding a Seagram’s wine cooler) – you often get the feeling that this star is not in on the gag.

So how did Matt & Trey get away with this? Simple. There was never actually a script for “Your Studio and You.”

Filming “Your Studio & You” at Universal Studios Hollywood

Mind you, David Zucker would always insist that there was. Especially when he’d phone up celebrities on the Universal Lot and say “Hey, I’m sending over a couple of college kids later today. They’re working with me on a new parody film. It’s something that we’re doing for the new owners of Universal. I need just a half hour of your time. We’re shooting something special for the party we’ll be holding when the Seagrams people first arrive at the Studio. Absolutely. You’ll definitely get an invite to that party. So can I count on you to help these kids out? Beautiful. They’ll be over there later this morning.”

And then Matt & Trey would show up and say “… Dang, Miss Lansbury. We’re sorry. We must have left our copy of the ‘Your Studio and You’ script back in our office. Which is clear on the other side of the Lot. So – rather than waste your time – why don’t we do this instead? Follow us over to the Psycho House. Where we’re then going to get footage of you painting the front porch on Mother Bates’ house while you say ‘Gosh, with all of the wonderful improvements going on around here, everyone is going to want to work at Universal.’ Oh, and can we also get you to wear this button on the front of your blazer which reads ‘Universal is A-OK’ ? “

And over & over again, the biggest names who were working for Universal at that time took part in the production of “Your Studio & You” because A) David Zucker vouched for Matt Stone & Trey Parker and B) this was something that was being made for the new owners of Universal. And it’s just natural to want to get in good with the new boss.

Steven Spielberg, Jeffery Katzenberg, and Jaws

But no one at Universal anticipated that “Your Studio & You” would wind up being as sharp edged as the finished product turned out to be. I mean, it’s one thing to bite the hand that feeds you. But “Your Studio & You” ? It doesn’t just bite the hand. It takes the hand off at the wrist.

It’s a brutally funny film. With one of the meanest moments reserved for Steven Spielberg, who plays a driver on the Universal Studio Tour who’s trying to persuade a tram full of bored tourists (one of whom is played by Jeffery Katzenberg) that the “Shark Attack” scene down by Jaws Lagoon is actually exciting.

Spielberg actually says lines like “ … Whoa, whoa. What is going on here? Ladies and gentlemen, this never happens. Look out! It’s a shark! Whoa, that is one big scary shark.”

Mind you, as footage of this mechanical shark repeatedly coming up out of the water is shown, “Your Studio & You” ‘s off-screen narrator (who is voiced by Trey Parker says):

“But what about tomorrow? If we don’t keep in step with the times, things that were once neat and thrilling can become old and stupid.”

“Your Studio & You” Reception

This film was supposed to be shown only once at the welcoming party for Seagrams executive on the Universal Lot. And I’m told that – when Edgar Bronfman saw the finished product at that party – he reportedly turned to David Zucker and said “ … That’s a little more mean-spirited that I think it needed to be.”

And with that, “Your Studio & You” was supposed to go back into the Universal vault, never to be seen again. But when “South Park” debuted on Comedy Central in August of 1997 and then became a sensation for its biting humor, there was suddenly a lot of interest in what else Matt & Trey had done. Which is why copies of “The Spirit of Christmas” began to circulate. And – over time – copies of “Your Studio & You” began to bubble up.

Which – as Stone & Parker have repeatedly pointed out – was just not supposed to happen. Largely because none of the celebrities who appeared in “Your Studio & You” had never signed releases for Universal’s legal department. Because – again – this was for a movie that was only going to be shown once at a private function on the Universal Lot.

Matt mentioned (as part of a career retrospective at the Paley Center in LA back in 2000) that “ … they wouldn’t even let us keep a copy of the finished film.”

It’s a funny but brutal movie. And worth taking a look at today especially if you’re a theme park history buff because it shows Universal Studios Hollywood’s “Jurassic Park: The Ride” still under construction on the Lower Lot. That attraction would finally open to the public in June of 1996.

“Your Studio & You” became a lot easier to see after Seagrams sold off its share of Universal to Vivendi in 2000. Copies began propagating online after that. Though Universal Legal will periodically make an effort to get the latest copy of “Your Studio & You” taken off the Internet because – again – none of the performers who appear on camera ever signed the proper releases and/or were paid for their efforts.

That said, if you’re up for a mean-spirited laugh, “Your Studio & You” is well worth 14 minutes of your time. That said, once you watch this thing, be warned: