Abandoned - Nickelodeon Studios Florida

In the late 1980s, two entertainment giants, Disney and Universal, were planning to open theme parks inspired by the Backlot studio in Central Florida, they were billing Florida as the new Hollywood of the South, and when both theme parks opened the tangible example largest of that concept in In this case, within Universal Studios Florida, was Nickelodeon Studios, it was coined as the world's first headquarters for children and was in part a working studio where many of Nickelodeon's iconic shows were filmed from the 1999s and partly a theme park attraction where visitors could watch the production. of those same programs, but this was all relatively short-lived and everything was shut down in the mid-2000s, then would continue to be

abandoned

for years to come.

What's up, guys? My name is Jake and in this special 85th episode of Abandoned, let's revisit it. an iconic

abandoned

theme park attraction that I made a video about in early 2015 and let's take a deeper look at this fascinating story and find out what has happened since this is Nickelodeon Studios Florida in the mid-1980s, as it happens Both the Walt Disney Company and Universal Studios were planning new theme parks in Florida. Of course, Disney World was already well established with two existing theme parks championed by CEO Michael Eisner. The plan was to build a large live action and animation studio along with a theme park.

Universal, on the other hand, was already working on something very similar: they were planning their first theme park outside of Hollywood and, like their competitor later called Disney MGM Studios, Universal Studios Florida would feature an active production studio and a park. thematic, all This was being promoted as the new Hollywood of the South, a cheaper alternative to filming film and television in California and a way for these companies to make additional money on tours to see those same productions live. It was an interesting idea and there was a lot of hype around it, as well as a fierce rivalry between Disney and Universal, but then there was Nickelodeon, a popular and now well-funded children's network that had been producing original programming such as the pinwheel Mr Wizards.

K-rated World for kids and the extremely popular double. I dare you, but the thing is, Nickelodeon had all of these shows filmed in different locations across North America, they didn't have a large central production facility, and that left them fragmented without the ability to scale new productions. By the late 1980s, Universal Studios Florida was more or less completed. in its overall design, even with some initial construction already underway - in fact, its sound

studios

in Florida were already nearing completion - Universal eventually approached Nickelodeon with the idea of ​​joining forces and establishing a production facility, but it More importantly, it gave Universal serious appeal to younger children as well as a year-round interactive attraction within the park's central production area, the deal was signed in 1988 and Nick Liian signed a multi-year contract. which allowed them the use of a large administrative building, as well as two dedicated sound stages flanking it. they would become stage 18 and stage 19 and the middle building would be called B17.

It was clearly a last minute addition to the park, so it is not depicted in most of the concept art, as well as the public model, it was now going to be placed along a new street just south of the park leaves the main road on June 7, 1990. Universal Studios Florida had officially opened to the public and with it so did Nickelodeon Studios Florida. The façade of the studio was clad in a very 9-style color scheme, but overall it was fun and colorful, very indicative. of the Nickelodeon aesthetic, the patio was also adorned with Nickelodeon themed benches and the Slime geyser that opened theatrically later that year, there were also some photo ops and then some props and a gift shop;

However, when the park first opened, it didn't necessarily feel too disconnected from the place you just arrived at, as beyond those photographs was an oddly large empty field and then the parking lot, which the trees didn't really make a good impression on. work to hide, regardless of the true attraction once you entered. After queuing under a large green canopy, you would be taken through the studio, ascending an escalator to a large open-air loft that was later painted with character murals, you would be taken along large, elevated, glass-enclosed walkways above the stages. look towards the Productions and have a guide explain what you were seeing, since Nickelodeon's contract with Universal stated that they had to be in production almost every day of the year, there would always be something for the guests to watch on the tour.

It would also take you into control rooms that disguise a kitchen and, rather intrusively, changing rooms, plus the children would have the opportunity to participate in game and activity shows, as well as auditions to be on the actual televised shows that They were being recorded that day for those who were not there. If selected well they would at least have the option of being in the live studio audience until the early 1990s, the tour would constantly evolve and so would the list of shows that would be filmed in the

studios

that Nick Jr filmed. Sketch comedy shows from Eureka's Castle and Gagola Island are included. roundhouse and all that, but the biggest list of titles came in the form of game shows like discover the numerous doubles Give VAR iations Nick arcade Nickelodeon trips Global trips what you do and Legends of the Hidden Temple some other hit shows including launchbox and Keenan and Kell see, I said it correctly this time, yeah, well, you know, it almost took me a decade to pronounce it correctly in a video, but it's okay if you weren't one of the 7,000 people who screamed about how I pronounced it in my original video, so I can't help you anyway, those were just some of the more notable shows that were filmed there and of course there were many more, actually almost all of the original shows that Nickelodeon produced in the early to mid 1990s They were filmed in Florida. studio if you want a more detailed timeline of where and when these real shows were produced, I suggest you watch Pap arina's video on ni Studios.

I'll leave a link in the description below clearly, although the first few years in the studios were an exciting time. The opening telecast, for example, was a big event in itself, and all over the United States commercials would air on television compelling kids to come visit and go behind the scenes at Nickelodeon. The studio would also market itself heavily in other ways, primarily in the shows themselves, which often showed the studios interacting with guests by holding special events and announcing their filming location at the end of each show, a particularly notable one being the Capsule Barrier. of Time in 1992, a special broadcast was filmed just for the ceremony while the children gathered a collection of pop culture items that relevant to the time will not be opened until 2042.

Mik Mali hosted the ceremony and himself made predictions stating that the children of the future will always be able to visit this place and the world's first headquarters for children, which would really turn out to be wishful thinking anyway. Nickelodeon at the time was extremely popular and the studios were a big draw for Universal guests in general, especially since Universal was a bit disappointing on opening day, it didn't have a huge number of attractions. Nickolodeon was a core part of Universal. experience especially for those who really wanted to see behind the scenes of television production, the park's tram tour would also traverse the courtyard and take visitors beyond the trails and behind the main sets.

But as time went on, Nickelodeon was starting to feel the long-term effects on how filming in Florida would actually work - it turns out that people don't really want to have to move to Central Florida now, the production workforce often does. It was cheaper and Nickelodean was not required by law to hire union staff, but on the other hand, there was also a significantly less skilled talent pool, as as for the talent itself, many were adamantly opposed to moving. to Florida, so most were just traveling around the country to film. It started to get complicated, especially when directors took their shows off-site and filmed them.

Elsewhere there were also logistical headaches in the core design of the studies. Long term, it was starting to become a challenge to constantly flow theme park visitors between active and inactive and make them appear active because they were contracted to production space staff and talent. always being observed making this a less than ideal place to work, this is a problem that Universal Studios Florida was facing as a whole, as were the Disney MGM Studios theme park attractions, NeverEnding guests, and even the weather with a rain endless on the metal sound stages were a constant annoyance, Disney was beginning to plan and even build new attractions completely divorced from any backstage theming.

Universal was also expanding in a big way, turning this single theme park into a Resort complete with new infrastructure, hotels, vast landscaping, a shopping and entertainment district, and an entirely new district. new theme park that would eventually become Islands of Adventure, this was a big step of almost three billion dolls for the entire Resort and also meant that the original Universal Studios park would see some updates in the mid to late 90s; I was following in Disney's footsteps. Building new attractions based on intellectual property rather than lot themes was a new direction for the park and saw the elimination of the studio tram tour.

The fact of the matter was that Universal Studios Florida wasn't seeing the amount of high-profile movies and television as if they were in California because nothing interesting was filmed at the location and guests weren't as interested in the Backlot Nickelodeon tours. Studios was becoming the only way to see a real production, but even there original programming was starting to burn out more producers. and directors advocated moving their productions to California, particularly Keenan and Kell, and all that, throughout 1986 no game shows with live audiences were filmed on location and the studio's fate became increasingly clear by the year.

Next, in 1997, Nickelodeon bought the Earl Carol Theater along Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, renamed it Nickelodeon on Sunset and began transferring some of its productions to that facility, meanwhile Nickelodeon laid off about 10%. of its full-time workforce in Florida, while some of those live-action productions were moving to California, animation was now becoming a larger part of the network's overall slate and all of that was being produced in the West Coast. Florida Studio didn't even have a facility capable of producing animated television in the late '90s. Universal Studios Florida was operating at a net loss using less and less of their studio space, but they couldn't really do anything about it other than essentially sublease their space to third parties, as they were contractually locked into the facility until at least 2005.

Universal certainly wanted them to stay as the attraction for the studio remained quite popular despite the change in the park's theme in the early 2000s. , production within the two stages would become less frequent with even more employees laid off, this was also due to the lackluster opening of Universal's new theme park, Islands of Adventure. and that, combined with the 2001 tourism crisis, well, Universal was in a bad place overall, Nick Studios Florida was losing money and providing little overall value to the network as a whole. Fewer productions also made the tourist attraction much less interesting and left it a little tired. and even old-fashioned things were becoming so desperate that Nickelodeon started auctioning off thousands of vintage props.

Now this is not to say that Nickelodeon didn't have a place in the theme parks because it obviously did with the opening of a Jimmy Neutron simulator as well as a water play area at Universal Park in Hollywood, it was only the studios in Florida that Bec quickly became a redundant facility on the network, which meant it simply didn't make sense to invest money in it to make it an up-to-date facility. attractionI think by now everyone knew there was no long term future for the studio and they were just running it out of obligation until their contract expired and that would be coming soon, until the early 2000s there really weren't any updates made to the experience.

Apart from a paint change in 2004 after some damage after Hurricane Charlie, which actually led to the removal of the 90s Nickelodeon IC, but this was purely cosmetic and by early 2005 it was obvious that Nickelodeon would not be renewing their contract. Nickelodeon Studios Florida closed on April 30, 2005. The studios and attraction had been open for just under 15 years over the following year, the studio facades would slowly lose their branding and theme and the administration building would become just a unnamed green structure at the dead end of Universal Studios. Sound stages lost their publicity. References to Nickelodeon were deleted and the Slime geyser was removed.

Nickelodeon Studios was now an attraction of the past and Universal was looking to repurpose some of that property as soon as possible. In November 2006 it was announced that stage 18 would become the Sharp Aquos theater and would host Blue Man Group, a live show that was quite popular at the time, preparations for this began quite quickly, painting stage 18 in blue with a huge Blue Man Group mural and moving the secondary entrance to the park back, turning it around. Courtyard to public space, a long path would extend right next to the Hard Rock Cafe and the show opened on June 6, 2007.

At that time, the 1992 Nickelodeon Time Capsule had also been unearthed and relocated to the Disney's Nickelodeon Sweets Resort; It would actually remain there until 2016, when the hotel was closed and renamed a generic vacation at the Time Capsule location. It was up in the air thereafter, although it was confirmed to have moved to Animation Studios in California. Now, after the opening of Blue Man Group, Nickelodeon actually returned to Universal Studios Florida for a brief period in 2008 using the bigger sound. sets behind the old studios for filming of My Family's SC Guts once the show ended, although it would be the last time Nickelodeon would produce anything from Universal Studios in Florida, while Stage 18 was now home to this new set of Blue Man Group, stage 19 and the iconic Nickelodeon administration building in the middle, well, they were just left essentially abandoned, they weren't removed or altered in any significant way from the outside, they just received a very white and blue paint job. smooth, although interestingly the orange railings were actually left in because they weren't being painted. a Azul until 2013, this left almost no visual design signs of Nickelodeon's original days, other than a wall that was turned away from guests, although it would also be painted in 2016, but inside it was a completely different story, as early as 2006 people would start.

They found their way inside the now closed studio and attraction and would find pretty much everything exactly as it was. Photographs of large props both from the attraction tour and from the actual production sets began to emerge, meanwhile, in the administration offices, they too were completely abandoned. intact in the 90s when the studio first opened, all of these offices were highly themed and continued to evolve as new shows appeared in 2012, all of these spaces remained abandoned and this was notably documented by Adam the woo in late 2012. In the 1990s, the escalator hall spanning two floors was, as we know, a large open space filled with the bright, flowery sun streaming through the square windows on the second floor, decorated with large flakes of oats. and murals from the animated show Wild Thornberry and now almost a decade since the show went off the air, it was disused and abandoned and no longer an active avenue for thousands of daily guests.

The Nickelodean branding of the era would be found on all doors, seats with a distinctive squeeze face found elsewhere in disuse and probably obsolete production equipment was left in the control rooms. Dust was now gathering in the old dressing rooms and the interior hallways were left exactly as they were the day the studio closed, adorned with ceiling artwork from Renan's Florida. Some of the larger, less themed spaces were being renovated. Universal rented it or used it for smaller events but presumably the admin space was left completely unused which is probably why it remained stuck in time and it was quite shocking to see this as everyone thought that Nickelodeon's The 9s were gone forever, but they were actually behind us. those walls were a completely different world from a completely different time for an entire decade these interiors of Nickelodeon Studios remained as they were completely abandoned finally in 2015 the production arm of Universal Studios announced that they would invest a little over a million dollars in renovating the space to accommodate modern equipment and build a live and post-production support facility and it made sense to do this, especially if Universal saw there was enough demand by renting out their other stages, including the adjacent Stage 19, so work began on 2015 first with the destruction, not the escalators in the main entrance hall and removing the old murals.

I remember being allowed into the old studio in December 2015. I captured this footage of the now newly painted escalator-free room. Now it was bland and generic, free of any Nickelodeon theme, as it was. The rest of the structure was now completely devoid of personality, the open space was as utilitarian as possible with live events and production equipment stacked everywhere from then on, which is how the old Nick Studios would remain unbuilt. Rip Ride Rocket roller coaster. in the summer of 2009 and its charging station would be squeezed up against stage 18 with the road to the Blue Man Group hugging the final corners of the track, by 2012 the aost had abandoned its sponsorship for the Blue Man Group, its logo was , of course.

It was removed and the facade saw a new paint job, it wouldn't be until early 2020 when Universal closed the park due to the pandemic. Blue Man Group, of course, closed with him, however, upon the park's reopening, Blue Man did not join him. The show's parent company, Alay Circus, had declared bankruptcy due to the pandemic, suspending all shows due to crippling financial pressure. In early 2021, it was announced that Bloing Group would not return. Stage 18 was painted solid blue and CityWalk access to the building was now closed. The theater would be used intermittently for seasonal events, particularly the parks' Grinchmas events, which take visitors to the theater's old Stage 18 to see a Grinch-themed Christmas boat.

Other than that, it's pretty ironic that a Once again this area has been left in a state abandoned in limbo. Blank blue signs now dot the area and there is now a permanent path closed along the entire facade and the patio area looks more or less the same as it has since 2007, with an empty ticket office and no future plans today, the same is still true there . There are no future plans and the whole site is in a bit of a strange area. The old street that took you there, which is now adjacent to the Despicable Me attraction, is just a dead end with a door, you can look past the doors, but the entire area.

It looks desolate and there don't seem to be any immediate plans in the works to put the area into use, the buildings are however being used, it seems the most common tenants are students from the Dave School of Animation and Visual Effects which has a permanent residence within stage 25, although there may be a more permanent tenant within building 17 which is not widely advertised, but with the closure of Blue Man Group, regular public access to the area is no longer possible. You can see the structure from the balcony of the Hard Rock restaurant, catch a glimpse of it through the park gates, and maybe catch a closer look during park events.

However, all that remains is the overall architecture of the studios hidden behind the white and blue paint. At this point, there really isn't much left to do. See inside and out, the only obvious tangible remains of the area's past are found in the bathrooms adjacent to the building, as on the floor you will find Nickelodeon Studios Florida's distinctive lime green tile, both in its tangible structure and concept , now a relic of In the past, both Universal Studios and Disney's MGM, now called Disney's Hollywood Studios, have largely abandoned the Backlot behind the scenes, from what I understand, Disney rarely uses their in-house production offices and has demolished or completely replaced all of its sound stages after failing them. with IP-based attractions, Universal continued to sue on the attractions side, but kept all of its sound stages and Nickelodeon proved to be the largest and for a time most successful production company in all of Florida; in fact, Nickelodeon would continue to be the largest production network. creating content in Florida throughout the trajectory of this dream as the new Hollywood of the South and although Universal uses their sound stages for external production use, I don't think any come close to what they had imagined.

But as time went on, the logistics and costs began to make no sense, it was not a viable long-term business, and enthusiasm abruptly shifted from Florida to other profitable avenues. It is clear that the dream that Disney and Universal had of bringing Hollywood to Florida simply came true. It was a flop, but it really was a huge shame to see this happen, especially for someone like me who loved Nickelodeon programming as a kid. I even have photos of me at Nickelodeon photo shoots at Universal with a Nickelodeon set looming precariously in the background getting ready to close.

Just a few years after my visit and now almost 20 years since its closure, the remnants of the vibrant and nostalgic past are now nothing more than a seemingly harmless Bland structure, even with the new use being put to a portion of the studies that is also now. abandoned with little hope of a future and while Nicol Ian has other strangely modern and luxurious attractions and Resorts around the world, it is undeniably a different network and a different company. I think the Studios in Florida were a really unique and special way for a network to connect with their audience, it was a way for the cameras to turn on real viewers and see kids interact with their favorite shows, it was just good television and such.

Maybe that comes from someone who has rose tinted glasses and looks back fondly at something. I grew up watching it, but I really think this whole thing was lightning in a bottle and clearly I'm not the only one who thinks that, since there are a lot of people who have Massive connections to this place, I mean, that's why so many people watched my original video despite being so poorly produced, it's also why we see classic items being auctioned off and sold for incredible prices, like this original Time Capsule cover that was auctioned and sold for about $20,000.

The same goes for this toilet paper from 1993 that was sold. for a little over $220, but regardless of how the physical relic of Nickelodeon in the '9s no longer exists, it still exists in the thousands of hours of media produced there and in the millions of children who fondly remember visiting it, but when the doors closed on one. Last time and those once abandoned iconic interiors are finally gone. I guess at the end of the day, both its viewers and the network grew thanks for watching this video and if you remember watching my original Nickelodeon Studios video in 2015, thank you very much. for sticking with me and my channel, that was an incredibly important video for the channel and because it was so poorly put together back then compared to now, I at least thought I should cover this very nostalgic topic again in my own way, you know the procedure if you want to follow me elsewhere I'm also on Instagram Twitter and if you want to support the channel I have merch and a patreon where you can get exclusive benefits like Polaroids your name at the end of each video and early previews of the videos my name is Jake and Seriously, thank you very much for watching.