Improving Universal City, And Destroying History In The Process

During one of the random clickathons that comprise my typical internet session, I happened upon this, the NBC Universal Vision Plan. In a nutshell (to save you the trouble of having to read the whole thing), Universal City, NBC Universal's home base, has decided to give back to the City and County of Los Angeles, and open up their somewhat private "city" to housing development and mass transit opportunities. Honestly, it's a pretty good idea, except for the fact that they'll have to destroy movie history in order to do it.

Part of the "Plan" is to add a housing development called Universal Village on 120 acres of Universal City's land. Unfortunately, this 120 acres happens to be a good portion of Universal Studio's backlot. In order to make way for this development, they'll have to get rid of the famous attractions that happen to reside there. Like the giant water tank that current houses the Ark from Evan Almighty; the Jaws ride; the ancient street set that houses both Desperate Housewives and Ghost Whisperer; the remnants of Whoville; the massive War of the Worlds planecrash set; and the Bates Motel and Psycho house (possibly one of the oldest things on the backlot). All of these things will go the way of the MGM Studios lot, just so Los Angeles can have some more fucking houses. (That state can break off the US and sink into the ocean any time now.)

Oh well. In the meantime, enjoy Your Studio and You, a celeb-filled promo video (which features some of the sets that are going bye-bye), made by Matt Stone and Trey Parker, commemorating Seagram's acquistition of Universal Studios in 1995. Needless to say, it never saw the light of day.