Defunctland: The History of Ghostbusters Spooktacular

boo my name is Kevin perjurer and welcome to another edition in defunct oil for background slash context on this series please visit defunct ENCOM that's right I rebranded the purge to focus solely on defunct land while I enjoyed by their content I think it was confusing for new visitors so I think this was the right decision I'm going to be pumping out some theme park related articles soon that are unique from YouTube series so stay tuned for those also this is where we will be posting updates on defunct land VR and you can look at some of our designer profiles now if you're a 3d modelling or graphic design experience and want to help with the project we are assigning tasks on the first attraction the site works whether you go to the purge calm or defunct I am calm so go check it out after this video of course today we will be attempting to resurrect Universal stage show Ghost Buster spectacular this attraction played at Universal Studios Orlando from June 7 1992 November 9 to 1996 this show was incredibly popular I mean just look at how many people suggested it in 1984 the movie Ghost Busters was released it was of course a huge hit being praised for its witty comedic style acting performances and special effects more importantly to the studio its unique designs were memorable and quickly became ingrained in popular culture this meant merchandise galore action figures costumes TV shows sequels soft reboots high-fructose corn syrup pasta Japanese burgers Ray Parker jr. underwear ceiling fans and most importantly amusement park attractions after the film's release Bally manufacturing in an entertainment company that had recently bought Six Flags amusement parks began development on a Ghostbusters ride called the Huntington hotel it is important to note that Ghostbusters was distributed by Columbia Pictures a Sony company and not Universal Universal obtained the theme park license to Ghostbusters as they do with many of their attractions this is why it was feasible for Six Flags to create their own ride based on the franchise Maui's attraction will be a dark ride similar to the Haunted Mansion equipped with ghost cannons similar to Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger spin Toy Story Midway mania or men and black alien attack while the Huntington hotel would be considered average by today's standards the ride would have been the first of its kind in the mid 80s it was never built however because in 1987 Bally sold six flags and the attraction was never heard about again but Ghostbusters would still fly it's way to amusement parks with the opening of Universal Studios Florida two of the most popular movies of the 1980s for Ghostbusters and its sequel but the full-scale live-action Ghostbusters set here features the largest single magic illusion ever created it isn't a movie it's real hi I'm Lindy and welcome to the world of ghostbusters on this rooftop a spectacular battle was fought with an ancient demigod known as Golder that was strange [Applause] [Music] [Music] thank you doctor for saving my license this is Takashi you know tell your boss the chat could be made out to the first version of the show opened with the park in 1990 this iteration had no preshow so the concept was introduced to the audience through a female tour guide as she is talking about the ghostbusters franchises she mentions that she does not believe in ghosts in real life Slimer then appears behind her followed by Gozer and other ghosts dozer attacks the tour guide before the Ghostbusters enters save her Gozer dodges the beams from their proton packs and escapes through the gates just as Stay Puft rises up the Ghostbusters literally toast him causing him to turn red and emit smoke the tour guide returns to thank to Ghostbusters for their help and everyone ends the show by singing the chorus of the Ghostbusters theme song the effects were elaborate the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man was below the stage for the majority of the show he first Rises into view through darkness and misdirection and his exit was masked by a cloud of fog Universal claimed that there was 11.2 tons of liquid nitrogen produced every day for the show the Stay Puft animatronic was 22 feet high 22 feet wide and 18 feet deep this is the only animatronic that appeared on stage but it was not the only ghost the majority of the ghost animatronics were actually on a separate stage positioned in such a way to pull off the Pepper's Ghost effect Pepper's Ghost is a live special effect in which a separate room is hidden from the audience's view when the stage lights are dimmed and an object in the second room is illuminated a piece of angled glass makes the image appear on stage slightly transparent this effect is most famous for being used in the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland as well as in other themed parts in ghostbusters spectacular a large piece of glass separated the stage from the audience allowing the ghosts to appear from multiple positions the animatronics rose into place illuminating on cue so that the actors could hit their marks and destroy the ghosts altogether the animatronics from the show weighed more than 19 tons and they were designed once again by Peter Alexander's ride in shell engineering in 1993 the show underwent a huge revamping a pre-show is added with ghostbusters character Luis Thole who is promoting the ghostbusters services these people were miserable with that low-paying go-nowhere job I was gorgeous I was a short order Garfield what is the crust a specialist destroy the spoke thinking he begins a demonstration with three volunteers each has a fun little gag that goes along with it Lewis then tells the guests to enter the theater apart from the new pre-show the main show was also drastically changed there's now clear narrative as Lewis comes out onto stage and continues to try to sell the audience ghost busting equipment he was interrupted by the government agent from the first film Walter Peck who declares he's shutting down the ghost busters for fraud Lewis attempts to use the audience to convince Walter that ghosts exist but Walter doesn't believe them Lewis quickly turns the lights off a ghost appears trying to scare Walter but is actually just Louis controlling a simulation Walter reiterates that he is shutting them down before stumbling onto the Temple of gozer ghosts begin to appear behind Walter and Gozer appears and attacks them just as the ghost busters and Lewis enter here until the end is similar to the original production but instead of six minutes with the ghost busters we now only have two it ends as Walter runs in covered in marshmallow and the ghost busters thank the audience for watching an interview with one of the technicians provides a hilarious anecdote that occurred during the run of the second version of the show the funniest thing that I ever saw Ghostbusters happened one day shortly before the show closed I was in the booth with another technician and we noticed that there were no Ghostbusters on stage Lewis totally was running around the stage and a proton pack trying to make every single blocking point for all of the Ghostbusters is that the ghost and screaming at the top of his lungs for some help it turns out that the rest of the cast were hanging out backstage and hadn't heard their places call causing them to completely miss the show they all went out at the end into the meet-and-greet after and we never spoke of the performance again the attraction like most at Universal Studios had its own gift shop the paranormal store some of the actors would appear here after the show and some of the great merchandise I mentioned earlier was sold here in 1991 an accompanying street show street busters debuted which features the team attempting to capture beetlejuice the show lasted about 15 minutes and mainly featured dance performances by the cast its ceased operation in 1993 the second version of spooktacular lasted three years Universal closed the attraction citing that it was time for a change the show closed on November 9th 1996 two years later it would be replaced by a probable future addition to the fun planned twister ride it out on October 1st 2002 nearly five years after the closing of spooktacular extreme Ghostbusters the great fright Way debuted it was another street show nearly identical to street busters this ran until February 25th 2005 this is when Universal supposedly lost the theme park rights to Ghostbusters since this there have been numerous Ghostbusters attractions that have appeared in various amusement parks throughout the world a br adventure at Madame Tussauds in New York a laser tag walkthrough at Six Flags Mexico a dark ride in Dubai and a 5d film in Germany are a few examples and I'm sure that are more planned for the future as for Universal there has been no stated interest in licensing the franchise again for an attraction and that doesn't look like it's going to change as the future of the Ghostbusters franchise itself seems to be in limbo currently so why did it closed well if you remember the previous Universal installments of the funk land you might already know they wanted a fresh new franchise the movie twister debuted in theaters in May of 1996 and spooktacular closed in November of that same year twister was a success and it was a universal film that didn't require additional licenses to be used in their parks at the time it made sense from a business perspective but looking back it is just another illustration of Universal misjudgment of franchise longitude they are willing to close attractions based on staples of pop culture such as King Kong jaws back to the future and Ghostbusters but at the same time they keep around attractions based on properties such as Dudley do-right and Waterworld ghost busters spooktacular was a fan favorite and its closure was another step in erasing the original concept and theming of Universal Studios Florida this problem is still relevant today and if Universal continues to close its best attractions the entire park will soon become a creativity ghost town and then who you going to call [Music] is great about the special effects in the Ghostbusters attraction is that their full-scale you get to see the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man his head alone is 22 feet in diameter and he's full-sized and you get to feel just like you were there on the set they were filming that fantastic film and if you remember the great finale sequence estate box marker marshmallow man hauled up that building and the Ghostbusters blasted and well you're going to be right there like you were you were standing just a little bit to one side of the Ghostbusters when all that was happening and that's a pretty unique experience so that is the history of Ghostbusters spectacular along with the new website there is a new poll to determine the placement of a few defunct plant attractions and the title the more areas of the park that's in the description where you will also find a link to ghostbusters HQ net that's some great photos from the attraction and some interesting information as well plus check out the link to slash film to learn more about the Ghostbusters attraction that was never built to learn more about where the remains of Ghostbusters spooktacular are today and our plans to recreate it please visit defunct on comm with the link in the description below otherwise thank you for watching and don't forget to comment to share and subscribe you

Channel: Defunctland

Views: 768,203

Keywords: defunctland, kevin perjurer, theme park, extinct, abandoned, defunct, history, disney, disneyland, disney world, previous, attractions, on ride, lights on, ghostbusters, ghostbusters spooktacular, universal, spooktacular, universal studios, ghostbusters show, ghostbusters ride, universal studios orlando, universal studios florida, special effects, slimer, stage show

Id: viiEHzz2EkA

Length: 10min 56sec (656 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 14 2017