8mm Forum: Airport 77 theme ride

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Posted by Mark L Barton (Member # 1512) on January 17, 2013, 08:03 AM:

Just watching Airport 77 and a bit of googlin' has revealed that back in the 70's at a theme park you could 'act' within the Airport 77 attraction. The results could be purchased either on 8mm or video. Do any forum members have examples of this?
Extract from wikipedia 'Airport 77'

From late 1977 until the early 80's the Universal Studios Tour in California featured the "Airport '77" Screen Test Theater as part of the tour. Several sets were recreated and members of the audience were chosen to play various parts. The audience would watch as these scenes were filmed. Key scenes such as the hi-jacking, crash and rescue were recreated and the footage was then incorporated into a brief digest-version of the film and screened for the audience on monitors. Each show's mini-film was made available to audience members to purchase on 8mm and videotape

Posted by James N. Savage 3 (Member # 83) on January 17, 2013, 10:21 AM:

!!!!!!THAT'S THE COOLEST THING I EVER HEARD OF!!!!!!

Posted by David Ollerearnshaw (Member # 3296) on January 17, 2013, 04:36 PM:

I visited a total of 6 times to Universal Studios, the last time 23 years ago. Gosh I feel old thinking back.

The old memory banks have kicked in now. Yes I remember something like the Airport 77, that could have been when we first went in 1980. Feel sure later on they also did something with Star Trek too, & maybe another one. It was quite clever the way they did it. They had TV outside playing the footage on them.

The avalanche based on Hitchcock's persistence of vision stands out, basically a rotating tunnel the tram went through, you really did feel as if you were rolling.

Another was Frankenstein's monster. It was just standing where you waited to board the tram, suddenly it moved, the women in front of me gave out a scream, made me jump too.

It was a good days entertainment, plus you could relate to lots of the stuff filmed there over the years.

Used to stay at the Sheraton Universal which was on site. Had one of those I know him moments, I still don't know who it was though. Wish I had asked for his autograph though it would have told me who he was.

Took lots of super 8 film too on my visits.

Not sure if I would enjoy it as much now though.

Posted by Bill Brandenstein (Member # 892) on January 18, 2013, 12:30 AM:

Yes, my family did this back around 1979. I still have the faded 3-minute film and badly edited cassette tape that was intended to provide sound, though it never came close to working right. Actually, the film edit is pretty cheesy too. The payoff was having people you know intercut with scenes from "the big movie." All in all, a pretty expensive tourist trap deal. Anyone handy with a movie camera, and who enjoyed the Super 8 digests of the era, would've enjoyed those just as much or more. Attraction rating: 2 stars out of 4!

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