story by Kayte Deioma
I’ve never been a big fan of wax museums. I went once when I was 18 and didn’t feel like it was something I ever needed to do again. Seeing the experience through kids’ eyes made me think again.
Madame Tussauds was the one thing that my nephew Derick really wanted to do in New York, and he’d been such a good sport about American Girl Place, that we made the effort to squeeze it in on our last day.
We had walked past Madame Tussauds several times on our way to do other things near Time Square. The giant hand reaching out the front of the façade like it’s going to pluck you off the sidewalk, made my nieces just as excited to come back and see what was inside.
Our New York Pass let us bypass the line to get our tickets, which were included in the price of the Pass. The kids got almost as much of a kick out of skipping the line as visiting the attractions.
History
Marie Tussaud’s mother worked for a doctor in France who had some skill in making wax models. She learned the craft from him and on his death inherited his collection of wax figures of notable people. She began to exhibit his figures with some of her own in a traveling exhibit and opened the first permanent Madame Tussaud museum in London in 1835. Until 1971, when Madame Tussauds opened in Amsterdam, you had to go to London to see the French woman’s original collection (remade from original molds after shipwrecks and fires).
You actually still have to go to London to see most of the oldest figures, because the new venues opened in Amsterdam, Las Vegas (1999), Hong Kong (2000), New York (2000) and the latest in Shanghai, each have their own specialized collection. There are replicas of the lady herself at each venue and many notable celebrities and world leaders are repeated, but each museum also has a few cast members that are more meaningful to a local audience. In New York, you can cozy up to Al Roker and Matt Lauer or have your photo taken with the latest addition, New York Mets third baseman, David Wright.
Star Struck
It was fun to watch the kids get excited about having their photos taken with favorite movie stars and other notables. I was amazed how many movie stars 7-year-old Sarah knew by name. She claimed me as her personal photographer as the others went on ahead
. “Take my picture with Whoopi! Take my picture with Julia Roberts! Take my picture with Robin Williams!”
Derick was all about getting his photo taken with the pretty girls. Paris Hilton in jailbird stripes was in the lobby; Lindsey Lohan had a turn, but Jessica Simpson was the one he still remembered weeks later.
They all did better than I expected recognizing past presidents and world leaders from Abraham Lincoln to Princess Diana. My sister Ellie grabbed Becca and Sarah and positioned them next to Hilary Clinton. “Now you can say you had your picture taken with the next president,” she told them.
I was surprised when Derick, who doesn’t think much of school, chose to be photographed with Albert Einstein. The 16-year-old towered over the genius.
Ellie wanted her photo taken with Oprah, who’s taller than I thought, and in the kitchen with Rachael Ray.
Interactive Wax
Since I wasn’t originally planning on visiting or writing about Madame Tussauds, I didn’t do any research before I went, so we missed a few things.
Since the last time I was in a wax museum (long ago) they’ve added interactive exhibits. In Madame Tussauds New York, they are often so subtle you won’t know they’re there unless you’re really looking for them. We were oblivious to most of them because we didn’t see any indication that there was something to “do.” I guess we should have read the small (sometimes large) print. I found out about most of the interactive exhibits by visiting the website after the fact.
Derick got right up close to Usher to take a photo, and we could hear the music playing, but we were unaware that this was an interactive exhibit that lets you play DJ by changing the music choices.
When the girls posed next to Hilary Clinton, there was a TV monitor over her head that indicated what percent of voters would be willing to vote for a woman. We didn’t look close enough to notice that the surrounding red curtains were covering voting booths, where you could go in and cast your vote in that poll.
If you look closely at the refrigerator in Rachael Ray’s Kitchen, magnetic letters spell out “LOOK INSIDE.” I didn’t see this until I zoomed in on the photo of Ellie in the kitchen, so we didn’t realize we could or should open the fridge to find a touch screen monitor with Rachael Ray trivia. In the photo, I also noticed a sign on the oven that says “See What’s Cooking” with an arrow, so there’s probably something interesting in there too.
Apparently J-Lo’s cheeks will glow if you whisper in her right ear. Who would think to do that without a great big blinking neon sign?
I would have liked to have seen how they made Superman Returns interactive, but I didn’t notice the phone booth I was supposed to step through to reach Metropolis, where, according to the website, we could have flown over the city with the help of the “green screen” effect and bought the souvenir DVD to take home.
We did experience the live monsters populating the Chamber of Horrors. They would have been hard to miss. Characters from A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Friday the 13th pursue you through the maze, making it a bit more Halloween funhouse than scary wax figures that hold still.
Idols of the Future
The best participatory exhibit was the American Idol karaoke stage with a wax Simon Cowell critiquing singers. The live KJ crooning between volunteers gives this one away. The karaoke area, which is also the snack bar, was pretty quiet when we came in, so Becca and Sarah stepped right up to sing “The Start of Something New” from High School Musical. Derick grabbed some ice cream dots and joined Ellie and me and a wax gentleman in the audience.
People gathered as they sang and they got a nice round of applause after they finished. The voice of the almighty Simon sounded from overhead: “That performance can be summed up with one word. Congratulations!!!…” Since Ellie videotaped the performance with her own camera, we skipped buying the DVD.
Our last stop was the gift shop, where Derick had his hand cast in wax as a souvenir of his favorite stop on our New York vacation.
Madame Tussauds
234 West 42nd Street (between 7th and 8th Avenues)
New York, NY
(212) 512-9600
www.nycwax.com
Madame Tussauds is included in the New York Pass discount card. For more information visit www.newyorkpass.com
Read Reviews of Madame Tussauds New York on Tripadvisor.com.
young girls to history, the books focus on issues of friendship, self-esteem and relationships. Each character has an accompanying 18-inch doll and accessories. The original books have expanded into a series about each character.
American Girl Place includes a store, historic exhibits, a doll hospital for repairing broken dolls, a doll hair salon, a café and a theatre. It’s possible to spend all day and several thousand dollars there in one visit and I spoke to several people who did just that.
We arrived at the store an hour before the show to have time to shop. We were disappointed in our search for doll clothes, because Becca’s and Sarah’s dolls, bought the year before, were from a limited edition series, the Hopscotch Hill Girls. Since they were a different size than the rest of the dolls, there were no clothes available to fit them. They were somewhat appeased to hear that their dolls were now “real collector’s items.” Becca did end up choosing accessories for the doll’s dog, Licorice.
Sarah decided to use her doll clothes budget to have her doll’s hair done in the Doll Beauty Salon. At $10, a dolly hair do is one of the most economical options available. The hairdresser gave the girls lots of tips for successful styling. Sarah was impressed with how much easier it was to work with the doll’s hair when it was wet, and the toothbrush was great for creating perfect bangs. My sister Ellie learned a couple new styles to use on the girls from the video that was playing in the background.
Circle of Friends: An American Girl Musical tells the tale of eight friends in an American Girls club who are planning a surprise birthday party for one of the girls at their club sleepover. As part of the club activities, the girls act out the stories of the historic American Girl characters, Kaya, Felicity, Josefina, Kirsten, Addy, Samantha, Kit and Molly.
From these stories, they learn lessons they can apply to mending relationships between each other. The friendship lessons hit close to home for some in our group who were going through similar experiences.
The Café offers a proper, fine dining experience appropriate for girls and their dolls for brunch, lunch, afternoon tea or dinner. There are specific seating times for each and all are fixed-price three-course meals with a variety of main courses from which to choose. Despite our budget considerations, we considered having dinner in addition to the show, but our schedule didn’t leave us enough time beforehand and the Café isn’t open after the second show.
The studios available to tour vary depending on what shows are in production and what time of day it is. Early in the day, you might get to visit Studio 6A, the set of Late Night with Conan O’Brian (now Seth Meyers), and sit where the live studio audience sits during taping. Later in the day, if Seth is taping, you might see the Today Show or Dateline NBC set. On the 10:15 am tour, we got to sit in Conan’s (now Seth’s) audience seats and visit Studio 8G, where NBC Nightly News and NBC Sports are taped.
As someone who came of age with Saturday Night Live, the highlight was standing on the set of Studio 8H where comedians from John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner and Steve Martin to Eddie Murphy, Janeane Garafalo, Adam Sandler and Chris Rock went from unknowns to household names during their time on SNL. A myriad of Fresnels and other light panels are suspended above. Blue and yellow clap seats circle the back of the studio. Since the show was in hiatus, we got to stand in front of the actual dual Grand Central Terminal sets that have been the primary backdrop of the show since 2003.
Between studios, you traverse halls lined with photos of well-known and lesser-known faces of NBC. After a quick stop in the Green Room to see where make-up magic is done, the final stop is a studio used just for tours. Each guest or group is photographed at a news desk with the New York skyline in the background. Two lucky volunteers also have the opportunity to be on the closed circuit TV. One gets to sit at the News Desk and read the news from a teleprompter. The other will report the weather from in front of a Green Screen, trying to keep track of which way to point his or her arm so it appears in the right place on the map.