Extinct Attractions – Miami Vice Action Spectacular

Welcome to Extinct Attractions. This week, we’ll be hanging out on the beaches of Miami for a stunt spectacular.

This past week, Universal Studios Florida opened to low crowds, even on its thirtieth anniversary, making it the first major theme park, along with its sister park Islands of Adventure, to open domestically. Though it has only been a few days, it seems like a success at first, so it will be interesting to keep an eye on it as time goes on.

Across the country, Universal Studios Hollywood doesn’t have many signs of reopening soon, but Southern California has been reopening relatively quickly recently, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we had some news about it sooner rather than later. As for today, we’ll be diving into Universal Studios Hollywood’s past with a theme park show in California based on a television show that took place in Florida.

Via Variety

Miami Vice first appeared on NBC in 1984. After a slightly rocky first season viewership-wise, the show took off in its second season, ranking ninth in the ratings, helped by receiving 15 Emmy nominations for its first season. Universal Television was one of the producers of the show, so when the show skyrocketed, they realized that it would be a perfect opportunity to bring the television show to life as a theme park attraction where guests could watch the stunts performed in real life.

Via The Studio Tour

On July 4, 1987, Miami Vice Action Spectacular opened to great aplomb, particularly being praised for its stunt work that helped theme park guests understand how stunts work while also just looking awesome.

The show featured 50 stunts and was touted as the most complex performance that Universal had ever put together. That moniker was eclipsed in future years by shows like Terminator 2: 3-D, but I went into watching Miami Vice with some pretty high expectations based on what I read.

While the show didn’t quite meet the expectations I had, I still really enjoyed it. My only real negative with the show was its framework where a “director” would come on stage between scenes to talk about how some of the stunts were done. I understand why they did that, but I would’ve preferred more of a narrative to drive the story on. By having an actor who wasn’t in the scenes as the only one explaining everything, the show felt a bit devoid of life.

Via The Studio Tour

The show utilized all kinds of props and vehicles to get around including motor boats, jet skis and mine carts. Our lead stunt actors got to use all of them while somehow managing to take out bad guys along the way. Even though there were only six stunt actors in the show, there was so much kinetic energy that helped the show feel larger than it was.

Via YouTube

I also particularly loved the lush landscape that they created for the show. You don’t generally see tropical looking landscapes in Southern California, so even seeing the stage on my computer screen transported me to another place.

But of course, the biggest part of the show was the helicopter that “flew” over the stage in the finale. Created with robotics, the helicopter really had that menacing vibe to it that served as a perfect conclusion to the show.

Via Universal Studios Hollywood

After 7 and a half eventful years, Miami Vice Action Spectacular closed for good on January 16, 1995 to make way for a new show based on Waterworld. Considering that the television show had been off the air for six years at that point, it was time for Universal to make the change. And though Waterworld is not a great film, the theme park show is still a blast to this day, twenty-five years later.

Well, that’s all for today so here’s your peek at what is coming in a couple of weeks.

Via BoredPanda

Thanks for reading and have a magical day!