Checking Out Universal Studios Hollywood's New Super Mario Interactive Wall and Retro Photo Ops
Uni Hollywood offers a couple of updates, both for Super Nintendo World and for the ongoing 60th anniversary celebration of the Studio Tour.
I paid a visit for Universal Studios Hollywood today as part of a media event, in order to try out a new interactive wall added to Super Nintendo World, along with getting a look at the recently debuted addition of more photo ops and prop displays tied to the ongoing 60th Anniversary celebration of the Studio Tour.
Super Nintendo World has clearly been a big hit since it debuted last year and is never lacking for people - in fact, on this very hot day (the high was 93 degrees and you felt it), there was already a 90 minute line for the flagship Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge ride shortly after the park opened. With Mario Kart the only ride in Super Nintendo World, the challenge becomes finding other ways to keep guest entertained, and much of that has involved the interactive elements throughout, including the various Super Mario blocks you can hit and gain points for via the parks’s app and several timed games you can play.
I love the look of Super Nintendo World and Mario Kart is a great ride — and Toadstool Cafe has lots of good, visually creative food — but personally, those game elements have rarely been that appealing to me. However, I did enjoy the new interactive wall, which keeps things simple but fun, as you hit a physical block to release a digital version on the wall of one of four Power-Up items that will be familiar to anyone who’s played Super Mario Bros. – a Fire Flower, Ice Flower, Super Mushroom or Super Star. Once you touch that item on the screen, you have a certain amount of time (which seemed to vary from 20-45 seconds or so) to defeat the enemies you see on the wall by tapping them - or, in one case, when you use the Super Mushroom, to destroy the brick wall on top of the real wall in front of you.
For kids (and adults, frankly), it’s easy to understand and to play, while actually involving a bit of physical exertion, especially if you’re on your own, since it requires running back and forth and touching the different elements wherever they appear, on the top or bottom of the screen. The use of many different Super Mario Bros. sound effects and images, such as when you hit the Super Star and that familiar, fast-paced music begins playing, hits that nice nostalgic endorphin rush. Several of us at the event tried the wall out more than once to get different kinds of Power-ups (they are randomized) and thus see the different visuals, such as the ice blocks that cover your enemies after you use the Ice Flower.
Obviously, an interactive wall is just an interactive wall, not a new attraction, but as we wait and see if the Universal Studios Hollywood version of Super Nintendo World will ever get the Donkey Kong-themed addition (and accompanying ride) coming to both the Japan and Orlando versions, it is good to see something being added to this land at all, given it only opened a year ago. Considering the success Super Nintendo World is having, it feels likely that something larger scale will inevitably be added, even as this particular park always has to contend with needing to take more space away from the actual functioning studio lot to make that happen. For now, I’ll also celebrate the interactive wall being in a covered, interior hallway, unlike other games in the land that are out in the bright sun, because did I mention it was really freaking hot today??
I wrote about the 60th Anniversary celebration going on for the iconic Studio Tour when it kicked off a couple of months back. Recently, a few new elements were added to the park as part of that celebration in the form of new photo ops in the Universal Plaza area, near the entrance of the park, which I was finally able to check out today as well.
Some of these felt more general Universal history-related, because while E.T. and Back to the Future both once had rides at the park, they’d be beloved films regardless, and the DeLorean Time Machine or a photo with E.T. on that bicycle would have the same meaning.
However, some of the photo ops reach into the history of Universal Studios Hollywood in a more pointed way, such as the one for Jaws, with its defaced Amity sign — which is a part of both the film and the Studio Tour Jaws section — and especially given it sometimes includes appearances by someone playing Officer George, the ill-fated scuba diver who’s part of the Jaws attraction - though, alas, George wasn’t there when I visited. Maybe he'd already been eaten by the shark? My old pal E.T. was there though! He’ll never let you down.
Then there are also portions based off very specific parts of the theme park or tour that no longer exist. The western photo backdrop contains a jail, complete with bendable bars, which spurred ancient memories from my childhood when the tour still would stop at the long gone Prop Plaza and included a photo op with those very same bars (well, the same concept at the least).
And then there was at the photo op that gives a visual nod to the defunct Ice Tunnel portion of the tour, which spun around you as you drove through, for a nicely trippy experience. Its final incarnation was themed to the Brendan Fraser Mummy movies, complete with a sand-colored repaint, but I was happy the photo op uses its classic, icy form as inspiration.
The 60th Anniversary edition of the tour, including the awesome portion where you stop and can get out of the tram at the Bates Motel for various photos, is scheduled to end August 11, so I was glad to see these additional elements added to the park to further commemorate the event before this too-brief run concludes. Because as much as I can’t wait for my beloved Halloween Horror Nights (whose impending arrival no doubt is the reason to wrap up these added elements relatively quickly), this is an occasion worth celebrating right while they can.
Lastly, I’ll note that this was the first time I’d visited Universal Hollywood where I saw actual elements of the track for the upcoming Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift coaster now in place among the ride’s large, hillside construction. We’re still a couple of years away from this ride opening, but it’s good to see some early, tangible progress for what looks to be a pretty expansive coaster experience.