Australia’s Warner Bros. Movie World opened in 1991 and it featured aGremlinsride. It’s not clear why we’re all just learning about this now because this seems like some pretty huge news. If that wasn’t enough, another Warner Bros. theme park opened in Germany, five years after the Australian park and it too featured The GreatGremlinAdventure. However, there were some key differences to both sets of rides and their respective countries that are pretty puzzling.
The Australian version of The GreatGremlinAdventure ride starts off in a movie theater whereparkgoersget to watch deleted footage and bloopers from Warner Bros. movies and TV shows. However, before the footage ends,Gremlinstake over the theater and it’s up to you to escape. The animatronic versions of the creatures look pretty awesome, but it’s nearly impossible to escape, so Warner Bros. brought in an animatronicBeetlejuiceto lead everybody to safety. Nobody seems to have any idea why the Ghost with the Most is included on aGremlinsride, but it’s just weird enough to be cool.
The German version of The GreatGremlinAdventure ride is pretty much the same thing, except it has a different intro andBeetlejuiceisn’t there to help you. Instead, the German version of the theme park enlistedALF, aka Gordon Shumway, from the hit American TV series of the same name. Before the ride begins, ALF tries to hunt a cat and reaches to grab one, but aGremlinattacks him instead, so it’s up to the parkgoers and ALF to find a way out to safety.
Beetlejuicewas a pretty odd choice to help escape theGremlins, butALFseems like an even weirder choice. However, upon some further research, it appears that Gordon Shumway was pretty huge in Germany and was a popstar for a short amount of time. The man who did the German voice of the alien is Tommi Piper and he released two albums asALF, which spawned 4 top ten singles. So, it makes sense that thecat-loving alien from Melmacwas there to help the tourists make it out of the park alive. Maybe David Hasselhoff wasn’t available?
Both Warner Bros. theme parks in Australia and Germany didn’t last very long, so it makes sense that a lot of us in North America didn’t know about the excellentGremlinsride until now. Thankfully, there is some video footage of both rides, featuringBeetlejuiceandALF, which should give you a good idea of what we all missed out on in the 1990s. One has to wonder why theGremlinsride and the Warner Bros. theme park never made it out to other areas of the world. AGremlinsride would more than likely be met with open arms at this point in time. You can watch footage of both rides below. Thanks toAlex Pardee’s Twitteraccount for finding these gems.
