June 30, 2006: Altadena & Hollywood

Why is Universal Studios theme park like a pizza? Because they’re both extremely cheesy! But our kids – and most everyone else, for that matter – love pizza, so it’s a good kind of cheesy. And what sort of cheese is it? American cheese, of course (in individually-wrapped slices).

You may be surprised that, despite calling this the Great American Road Trip, we're not including Disneyland on this trip. But we’ve visited the Magic Kingdom every winter for the past few years, while the boys had never been to Universal Studios -- and few things are more emblematic of America than Hollywood. Besides, this summer we’re going to be in Florida, where Disneyworld awaits.

The movies and TV programs that Universal centers its park around are the fluffiest summer popcorn and candy imaginable: Jaws, Earthquake, The Fast and the Furious, The Blues Brothers, Backdraft, Terminator 2, Waterworld, Fear Factor, and so on. High art this ain’t! And the plots and characters of these productions are incidental to the rides and shows, which are simply an excuse to subject audiences to as many wild stunts, loud explosions, and animatronic monsters as possible.

But this is irrelevant to the most important question: Did the boys have fun? You bet! Tommy loved the roller-coaster-type rides Back to the Future, Jurassic Park, and The Mummy, while Danny, who wasn’t tall enough for the most of the former, preferred cartoon-themed shows like Shrek and The Flintstones.

Debbie and I simply wanted to keep the boys happy, but studio lore was interesting to us as well. The fact that my sister's boyfriend Bradley is a writer and producer of the popular Sci-Fi Channel series Battlestar Galactica and has an office at Universal added to our interest. Bradley is also a musician, a licensed pilot, and a practitioner of Kung Fu.

We ate dinner with two Londoners, the voluble Neda and the more reserved Mira, who were on a two-month holiday and about to rent a car to tour the West Coast. Good luck, ladies! They pronounced the food in the Jurassic Cafe “not bad,” but Debbie and I are frankly getting sick of the cheese pizza, chicken nuggets, French fries, and various desserts that our sons crave, and we’re hoping against hope they will eventually tire of such fare.

Tommy is a big fan of jokes and puns, and Danny is an apt pupil. While Tommy and I were walking through the haunted house called Fortress Dracula, he came up with this clever item: What do you call a cross between a zombie and a tree? Frankenpine!