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While at Universal Studios
some weeks back now I went to a lot of effort to talk about the Haunted Houses
which were the main attraction, but there are of course other points of
interest, two of which are stage shows, the first being the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" and the other, "Bill and Ted's Excellent Halloween Adventure", whose west coast counterpart has been taking heat for being homophobic. There were also rides which
I had never been on: Despicable Me, The Mummy, and Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit.
Starting
with the rides and speaking as a man whose last trip to the studios included
"Jaws", "King Kong" and "ET" all of which are now
gone I was a little blown away by their replacements. "The Mummy" is huge fun and has
some meta humor and is actually an indoor roller coaster rather than just a
tour of the movie, ending with Brendan Fraser being charming. It is a lot of fun.
"Despicable Me" has a cute little story and the same cute characters that work in the
movies... Movies I have not scene. I got
the dynamic and the setting and it too was fun, it was a 3D immersion ride that
had the audience bouncing around with the smell of banana all around. Again, fun enough.
I like
roller coasters and the Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit was very cool. Pick a song to listen to on the ride, I
picked Kanye West's "Stronger" and it made things move at a good
pace... What am I talking about I was on a roller coaster, it did nothing to
the pace. The pace was already fast. That was the point. I barely heard the music because I laugh like
a fool on coasters. Still immense fun
even if that particular gimmick has less impact on me than it might others.
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| HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! |
The real
highlights were the shows, The first being "Bill and Ted's Excellent
Halloween Adventure at Universal Studios", or as my brother called it,
"Bill and Ted's Halloween Topical Reference Musical Number". I really had no idea what to expect from
this, apparently it just takes a lot of pop culture references (mostly memes)
and some legitimately good group performances of pop music and strings them
together. Lot of fart jokes, lot of
stupid crap... and yes I know it is "Bill and Ted" but those movies,
cartoons, and TV shows were more clever than just fart jokes and references,
they were more like retard "Doctor Who" (There was a live action "Bill and Ted" show. Seriously. Do you believe that? It looks and was terrible). I guess it was worth watching, but once they
had a "Sharknado" costume walk out to help fight Selena Gomez and
Miley Cyrus (the obvious missing joke for me was not having the actor playing Robin Thicke in the black and white stripe suit turn into "Beetlejuice"). I was just thinking of "Epic Movie" and "Meet the Spartans" and wanting to strangle someone. It bounced back with the final pop music mash up though.
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| Adequate! |
The
real-real highlight was the other show, which was a bit less packed but a hell
of a lot less crap. I had never been to
an audience participation presentation of "Rocky Horror Picture Show"
and it was a lot of fun. Water guns,
corsets, and a lot of very fit dancer/singers playing it up with real reverence
toward the goofy material that they were performing. "Rocky Horror" is a legendarily
"bad" movie, a "Sharknado" of its time, but was made with
zero cynical mindset and the people who made it had a soul. If nothing else you can say, "it is like
nothing else". That is what sets it
apart from "Bill and Ted".
Both are musical, but one is a quick and legit presentation of material
that is original and heartfelt, the other is a cynical chain of, "that
thing, and that other thing, and that other-other thing", which is not all
that fun.
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| Seriously, everyone had a six pack. So many crunches must have been done in preparation for this show. |
(Next will be on the subsequent trip to Disney's Hollywood
Studios, and the Epcot World Food Festival)
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