Ghostbusters Spooktacular - Revisiting The Past, Part 1

Ghostbusters Spooktacular - Revisiting The Past

Universal Studios Florida, Ride The Movies! Well, that's what they wanted you to think in 1989 when they started advertising a brand new theme park in Orlando, Florida.

Wait, hold on just a minute.... isn't Orlando the theme park capital of the world because of Disney World? Surely the Mouse would never allow such a transgression!? While, yes that is technically true, it's also false. See, Walt Disney purchased land outside of Orlando, and quite a lot of it at that! But Walt had the land zoned and exempted under what would become known as the Reedy Creek Act, and nothing could be built within the confines of Lake Buena Vista without the permission of the Walt Disney Company.

See, this is where Universal got a bit sneaky and shady, they had plans to open not just a fully functioning theme park but also a fully functioning studio and the city of Orlando ate the idea up! Ground broke sometime in 1986 as they started clearing trees and filling in swamp land to make way for their vision.

Meanwhile, on the Pacific Coast, Universal holds a press conference at their Hollywood location and reveal that the planned Orlando park would open in December of 1989.

Banner of proposed Florida park.

But like all great things, there came unforeseen problems. In 1988, Universal holds yet another press conference to let it be known that the park would delay opening until May of 1990, but while at this conference they show off a video package with Christopher Lloyd portraying his “Back to the Future” character, Doctor Emmett Brown, where he is interacting with all the various attractions and shows at the Florida park.

On June 7th, 1990, Universal Studios Florida opens to the public, but some attractions were still in production or only offering soft openings to park guests. With the opening of the park, the Ghostbusters Spooktactular stage show opened to the world.

From June of 1990 to the summer of 1993, the show operated as "functioning soundstage" where guests were led to believe that the "Ghostbusters" film was actually filmed in. The giant theater had a 1:1 scale recreation of the Gozer Temple from the end of the first film situated behind giant glass panels.

Well, boils and ghouls, I am going to take this opportunity to wind this post down here.

Be sure to keep an eye out for Part 2, where I go into a full description of the original stage show as well as a look behind the scenes of it.

Thank you for taking the time out to read Part 1 and if you enjoyed what you read here, be sure to head over to Facebook and give us a like on our page and while you're at it, go ahead and hit that subscribe button up top so you can be the first to know when our next article goes live!