Disney quietly pulled Waldorf and Statler's animatronics from the new Muppets coaster
When Rock 'n' Roller Coaster Starring The Muppets reopened at Disney's Hollywood Studios in May, the return of Statler and Waldorf was one of the best-received parts of the overhaul. The two hecklers got their animatronics pulled from the now-closed Muppet*Vision 3-D and installed in a camper van near the ride's unload station, ready to heckle riders on their way out.
Sometime around August 1, they went dark. Guests are now reporting a large black tarp draped over the entire camper-van alcove, with no sound and no movement where Statler and Waldorf used to sit. Disney hasn't said anything about it. Animatronics go down for maintenance all the time, but covering an entire set piece during normal operating hours, on an attraction that's only a few months old, is not routine.
The likely story here is placement, not failure. The unload area is loud: magnetic brakes, blasting show audio, and riders shouting all at once. The coaster's dispatch pace is fast enough that a lot of guests never got more than a glance at the two of them. Reused animatronics dropped into a spot with worse acoustics and worse sightlines than their old home is a known way for a good bit to underperform, and a relocation to the queue or the pre-show recording studio would fix both problems in one move. That's the fan theory. Nobody outside Imagineering knows yet what's actually under the tarp.
Universal's gutted Jurassic Park River Adventure is starting to look whole again
Every update on Jurassic Park River Adventure's rebuild so far has been some version of "torn apart further." Since January, aerial photos have shown the Ultrasaur stripped to bare armature and the Stegosaurus figures opened up for rework. A new round of aerial photos posted August 2 by @bioreconstruct on X is the first to show the ride moving the other way.
The most visible change isn't a dinosaur. It's the landscaping. An unusually cold stretch of weather earlier this year had left parts of the ride looking barer than usual, on top of the construction damage. Fresh greenery is now filling back in across several sections, which is normally the kind of detail that only goes in once the heavier structural work nearby is mostly settled.
That doesn't mean the mechanical work is done. The photos still show active work on animatronics, scenery, and support structures throughout the outdoor sections. But the throughline across every update since January has been preservation rather than reinvention: the original 1993 scenes are staying, and there's still no sign of a Jurassic World reskin. Reopening is still targeted for November 20, which leaves Universal a few months to finish rebuilding what it spent the first half of the year taking apart.