Universal Studios Hollywood just made a bold creative choice. That decision might unlock a solution for an industry that is facing a tough future.
Universal Fan Fest Nights returned to Universal Studios Hollywood last week. The park’s springtime after-hours event features special attractions inspired by comic and fantasy franchises, including Japanese manga-themed shows from Universal Studios Japan.
This year’s headlining attraction is a Scooby-Doo mystery staged on the Little Europe backlot set where Universal filmed many of its original classic monster films. I had high hopes for this one, following Universal’s success at last year’s Fan Fest Nights with a “Back to the Future”-themed interactive theater installation on the Courthouse Square set where the studio filmed that 1985 comedy.
Universal’s Studio Tour trams deliver guests to the Little Europe set for this walk-through experience. I knew the moment that I stepped off the tram that Universal had nailed the brief on this one.
Our task is to discover the identity of “The Phantom Director,” a masked studio employee who has hijacked the monster film we were supposedly hired on to work as background actors. The Phantom Director has unleashed Dracula, the Wolf Man, Frankenstein’s Monster and The Bride to break up the production. Scooby-Doo and the Mystery Inc. crew are waiting for us on set to help crack the case.
So how will we do that? As I stepped off the tram, Universal team members were handing out 16-page, full-color, glossy “Mystery Inc. Manual” comic books, along with pens. That is where we would find a map and instructions to collect the clues we would need. No QR codes. No instructions to download an app. In an era where the entertainment industry has embraced everything digital, Universal made the bold creative choice to go old school.
Holding that book, I was a little kid again, playing pretend with comics and watching Scooby-Doo on the Saturday morning cartoons. I will concede that some of my younger companions seemed flummoxed by getting paper-written instructions. But everyone got the hang of the case within moments. Fans swarmed the Scooby-Doo crew characters for help, selfies and autographs in those books.
No AI-generated slop can deliver the experience of facing Dracula and the Wolf Man on the very ground where Universal filmed its original monster movies, holding a comic book that you can take home as a souvenir and working with friends and strangers to solve a mystery that will end in a live unmasking show that hits every beat from a beloved classic cartoon series.
Automation has made it easy to create a flood of content online. But bad content just drives people to quit reading and quit watching. That is today’s existential threat to the entertainment industry.
It’s no mystery how entertainment companies can win more consumers. Give us the entertainment we will love. Trust artists to show you want that will be. And never forget the power of an immersive physical experience that no computer-generated imagery can match.
