My last “Universally Loved” column was a review of the 1970’s Centennial TV miniseries. Just like that film, which actually covered much more than 100 years, I’d like to look at Universal’s 110th Anniversary.
There weren’t really any details of what this would consist of, so I decided I would look at the 110 years of Universal and make some suggestions how they could celebrate.
By the way, the 110 year anniversary stone is Pyrite. Be sure to get some today.
Open “Fourth Gate” early
Epic Universe, Universal’s now under construction fourth gate at their Florida Theme Park campus, is set to open in “2023.” This is the park that is rumored to have a Nintendo themed area along with possible lands including another Harry Potter land and a possible Universal monsters area (where I would like them to rebuild “Jaws” and “Kongfrontation” thank you very much).
If they were to open this area early to tie in with the 110 year celebration, I think Universal fans like I would proverbially lose our minds. I know this is a stretch, but I put it here for wish fulfillment.
Re-release the good stuff
Universal truly has some awesome back catalog out there, and I’m always up for a trip to the cineplex to take in Jaws on the big screen again, but you can’t always get that to happen.
I propose a 110 year celebration area on Peacock (particularly since cinemas are still on the ropes with this whole pandemic deal yet). What would you put in there? Easy. One film from each year they’ve operated. Some of the old silent stuff is really tough to come by and I can see cinephiles like me crawl through there with two movies a week.
At minimum, you could pick ten movies from each decade. That way some of their stacked years, you could pick a few and fill in some of the weak years. It’s a thought.
By the way, IMDB has a horrible list out there of the 110 best Universal films, but I literally started throwing up with how it erred toward recency in every case. Why would you list Furious 7…like at all? You can find this pile of cow dung at https://www.imdb.com/list/ls051501794/
Send out stuff to Uberfans that have columns about their studio
This is completely self serving but you get 0% of what you don’t ask for.
Enhance WWE offerings
Since selling their network to Peacock, WWE has been taking it easy with self made productions. Here’s the pitch.
110 years of Universal. 110 wrestler Royal Rumble.
Yeah. You know you love this idea.
An NBC special about their history
Before you say, “Well, that’s self serving,” please refer to my idea two up from here. I’m kidding.
Think about it. Disney constantly pulls the ABC lever. When they have a new ride at one of their attractions. When they have some Marvel flick coming out. If they added a second mint on your pillow at WDW’s Polynesian Village. You know you are watching it if one of the Hough siblings is hosting it. Or some goofus from a tween show Disney is trying to push. Or both.
They generally pull these out at Christmas. ABC has about 33 of these specials around Christmas. NBC? They trot out the Today show people to host the Rockefeller Center Tree lighting. Now, I love that tree lighting and the time I went out there to see it is still one of those “bucket list” things I got to do in my travels across this ball of dirt orbiting the Sun. Still…it’s that and the Macy Day Parade. Yes, I know they do the live Musical thing, but they never seem to promote ANYTHING during that special.
My idea is simple. Place a person-to-person call to one of the experts bopping around TCM and put together a clip show of some of the finest moments of their history. Again, you could make multiple episodes over multiple nights and then drop the whole thing in your special area on Peacock. You could even tell folks, “If that clip grabs ya, go check out the film available this year on the ‘cock.”
I want them to abbreviate that name so we can say stuff like, “That early Hitchcock film wasn’t doing to well on our streaming service, so we had to pull it off the ‘cock.”
Peacock. Hitchcock. Hey, there’s a thing, too!
I am now avoiding a joke I thought of about Hitch’s unhealthy relationship with a blonde star of his…her name was Tippy. You see how this can all be balled up together.
This is below me. Moving on.
Merge NBC.com and Peacock
Why the heck do they have two streaming services? What the hell?
And we should totally call it “the ‘cock.”
Or we could name it like every other streamer and call it Peacock+ when it merges.
Ew.
I give these incredibly awesome ideas to Universal free of charge…well, unless you do what to send me some free stuff. I still have some wall space that I’m saving for the perfect item. Let’s get on that Universal!
If you can’t get this all done this year, let’s start the prep for the 111th Anniversary!