Happy birthday to Universal Studios Hollywood. The park opened 60 years ago tomorrow, on July 15, 1964, as the Universal Studios Tour.
Over the past six decades, no major theme park has changed as much as Universal's original property. From its beginnings as studio tram tour, Universal has evolved into a major theme park with multiple themed lands, even as it retains that tram tour as its heart.
Lew Wasserman's MCA had bought the Universal Studios lot in 1958, leasing it back to Universal Pictures for movie production. (MCA then bought Universal Pictures in 1962.) The lot had been closed to tourists since the end of the silent film era, but MCA allowed Gray Line bus tours to begin drive onto the lot, dropping its passengers for lunch in the Universal commissary.
Those lunch sales were making MCA some money, so Wasserman and MCA President Al Dorskind commissioned famed Los Angeles architect William Pereira to create a master plan for what is now known as the Universal City property. Pereira in turned hired Harrison "Buzz" Price to complete feasibility study for a Universal-owned and operated Studio Tour. (Price is well known to many theme park fans as the person who determined the sites for both Disneyland and the Walt Disney World Resort for Walt Disney.)
Dorskind liked the numbers and brought in Barry Upson as the first general manager of the Universal Studios Tour. Upson later went on lead MCA Planning and Development, which is today known as Universal Creative. Harper Goff, who created the storyboards for Disney's live-action "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" as well as concept designs for multiple Disney parks and attraction, designed the pink-and-white "GlamorTrams" for the tour, which the park has brought back to celebrate its 60th anniversary this summer.
Jay Stein, who started in the MCA mailroom in 1959 and eventually became the head of MCA's recreation division, oversaw the expansion of the Universal Studio Tour. (For the definitive look at the reclusive Stein's career, read Sam Gennawey's JayBangs: How Jay Stein, MCA, & Universal Invented the Modern Theme Park and Beat Disney at Its Own Game.)
To keep fans entertained even when filming schedules forced the trams from some areas of the lot, Universal began adding fixed attractions to the tour, starting with the flash flood scene in 1968 and continuing with the parting of the Red Sea in 1973, the collapsing bridge in 1974, and the Ice Tunnel in 1975. (Of those, only flash flood remains.)
The next year Universal added what would become its biggest fixed attraction to date: Jaws. Based on Steven Spielberg's 1975 hit, Jaws recreated the village of Amity from the movie, with a 25-foot animatronic shark emerging from the water to attack the tram.
In 1986, Universal added an even bigger attraction, installing King Kong in a 26,000-square-foot New York-themed soundstage. The Kong animatronic, the largest in the world at the time, was built by Bob Gurr, who also created most of the ride vehicles for Disneyland. (A 2008 fire destroyed that attraction.) In 1988, Universal added its third iconic Studio Tour attraction, Earthquake: The Big One, another themed soundstage, where the tram shook and bounced during a simulated 8.3 San Francisco earthquake. That attraction endures, with a refreshed version opened earlier this year.
In 1991, Universal Studios Hollywood expanded onto the Lower Lot, with the opening of a quarter-mile series of StarWay escalators connecting the top and bottom of the mountain upon which Universal City was built. Today, the Lower Lot is home to the Jurassic World - The Ride, Revenge of the Mummy, Transformers: The Ride 3D, and Super Nintendo World.
But Universal got its biggest glow-up in 2016, when The Wizarding World of Harry Potter opened on the Upper Lot, kicking off a $1 billion-plus transformation of the Universal Studios Hollywood property.
Today's Universal Studios Hollywood would be unrecognizable to a time traveler from 1964. Heck, a visitor from 2000 would be pretty confused by all the changes in just the last couple decades. Remember the War Lord Tower, Ma and Pa Kettle Farm, The Wild Wild Wild West Stunt Show, Star Trek Adventure, E.T. Adventure, Backdraft, Miami Vice Action Spectacular, Fievel's Playland, or the Nickelodeon Blast Zone? They're all gone now. The most recent deletions from the park were the Animal Actors and Special Effects Stage shows, whose theaters have been demolished to make way for the upcoming Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift roller coaster, now under construction for a 2026 debut.
To see what's available at Universal Studios Hollywood today, as well as how Theme Park Insider readers rank those attractions, please visit our Visitors Guide to Universal Studios Hollywood.
To celebrate the park's 60th anniversary, Universal Studios Hollywood is offering a second-day-free ticket deal, as well as other package discounts. You can find those on our partner's Universal Studios Hollywood tickets page.
Finally, we would love to hear your favorite memories about Universal Studios Hollywood's 60 years, in the comments.
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Only visited once way back in 1990 and marveled at how fun it was. Keep wanting to go back.
While it isn't the best them park in the world...USH is one of my personal top 2. It is always evolving, but something about it (the fact its part of a working studio, its location in the shadow of the Hollywood Hills, nostalgia, etc.) gets me.
It just hits differently than other theme parks. Its not the biggest & flashiest, but I wouldn't want it to be.
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Long-gone Universal tram tour attractions from the 1970's-1980's: Battlestar Galactica laser battle, the big rock slide (with foam rocks), the flaming house on fire, the get-off-the-tram to visit the narrated Special Effects soundstage with various demonstrations (including the amazing work of Universal background artist Albert Whitlock), the mandatory "break" at the half-way point of the tour where you had to exit the tram and were encouraged to buy a snack before you boarded another tram to continue the tour. And on the upper lot: Conan the Barbarian live stage show.