The JAWS ride at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida was always my favorite thing in the park. It's an awesome, exciting, and extremely fun romp through what alleges to be the actual town of Amity, where the JAWS movie (assumed to be a real, historical event in the world of this ride) was filmed. The ride rounds the corner, and all of a sudden you see the mangled wreckage of "the boat ahead of you" sinking from a shark attack, and from there on out it's a fiesta of truly terrifying and hilariously fun giant shark heads popping out of the water at high speeds, splashing and scaring the bejezus out of you. I was really upset to hear that it was closed this past January, but there are two very important things that help soften the blow.
First of all, the original Universal Studios Tour in Hollywood, California, where the very concept for the theme park originated, still has a part with a boat tour around the set of JAWS that of course becomes a thrill ride of awesome gigantic robotic shark terror. That's one.
But the other, much more real reason why I am able to cope with the terrible loss of the Orlando JAWS ride is the fact that, in a faraway land that is like a strange parallel dimension of our own world, the JAWS ride lives on. I speak, of course, of Japan.
You see, the JAWS ride at Universal Studios in Osaka, Japan is something of an unintentional parody of the American JAWS ride. This is because, in America, the actor who drives the boat is usually a young, masculine American guy in a short-sleeved muscle-man T-shirt. You know, somebody who you could reasonably see fighting JAWS because they look badass.
...Well, in Japan, the JAWS ride is piloted by a tiny little Japanese woman in a pillbox hat, white gloves, and a formal women's sailor suit.
So, when we round the corner and get to the part where the shark attacks begin, it goes something like this:
And that is how a sweet little Japanese woman killed JAWS. I will never forget this moment. It was probably the most abrupt character transformation I have ever seen in my life. It was the year 2005, at the JAWS ride in Osaka Japan, and I think I laughed so hard I cried. It is for this reason that I kind of hold the Japanese JAWS ride as a secretly higher favorite than the American version.
And so, whether the JAWS ride in Orlando, Florida is gone forever or not, I know that the Japanese JAWS ride lives on to this day, both in reality and in my ridiculous JAWS-loving heart!
