Take Two translates the day’s headlines for Southern California, making sense of the news and cultural events that affect our lives. Produced by Southern California Public Radio and broadcast from October 2012 – June 2021. Hosted by A Martinez.
The first week of 2017 has been a landmark week for Southern California's amusement parks.
On Wednesday, Disneyland hit capacity for the first time this holiday season. At California Adventure, Monday marked the final checkout for the famed attraction Tower of Terror, which is closing to make way for a new "Guardians of the Galaxy" makeover.
And at Universal Studios Hollywood, where attractions based on other popular movies, like Minions and Harry Potter prevail, a new attendance record was broken — people were turned away at the gates for the first time in the park's history.
For more on all this, Take Two's Alex Cohen spoke with Robert Niles from Theme Park Insider.
It's really what Universal's been working towards for the past several years. If you haven't been to Universal Studios in the past three or four years, the park looks completely different than the last time you were there. They've spent hundred of millions of dollars transforming that park. The big centerpiece of it all is the new Wizarding World of Harry Potter which opened last spring. This was the first Christmas season that the Harry Potter land was opened. I know I'm a huge Harry Potter fan. Visiting Hogsmeade over the holidays, I think, was an irresistible draw for a lot of people. They've put a lot of money into improving that park to make it a more attractive draw for people in Southern California and it really seems to be paying off this holiday season.
On what's coming down the line for Universal Studios Hollywood
"The big news is that there will be an entire land devoted to Nintendo coming down within the next few years. It's going to be something that's obviously very interactive. You think about rides like the Buzz Lightyear ride or the Toy Story ride at Disneyland and California Adventure... There's a lot that's happening with interactivity these days so this is an opportunity for Universal to take it up to the next level to give us the opportunity to drive a Mario Kart in real life."
Disney's replacing the Tower of Terror. How do they maintain the nostalgia while keeping current?
Disney is a master of playing with nostalgia. They just dropped a commercial promoting the return of the Main Street Electrical Parade which we all thought had glowed away forever twenty-some years ago. Well, it's back! It's coming back for a limited-time run this spring at Disneyland park.
You never know. If at some point "Guardians of the Galaxy" falls out of favor, maybe twenty years from now, they say, 'Hey look! The Twilight Zone is back!' Disney never truly throws stuff away because their fanbase is so attuned to nostalgia. In one form or another, things come back, whether in full form like the Main Street Electrical Parade or some type of tribute or nod or reference to it that we'll see at the park in some form in the future.