(Flickr pic by SFPhotocraft.)
Sunday morning's blaze at Universal Studios destroyed several sets and buildings... and also burned down the King Kong portion of the famed studio backlot tram tour.
The King Kong attraction was cheesy, yes. And hadn't been updated in 20 years. But it was still a main highlight of the tour, and I'm sure the re-enactment of what a earthquake would look and feel like inside a San Francisco subway station was impressive back when it first opened.
The King Kong portion was so old that I got a kick out of the fake news broadcast that ran during it: Rolland Smith, who was lead anchor at New York's WWOR-TV at the time the ride was created, takes center stage. Why WWOR, of all things? For a brief period in the early 1990s, Universal owned WWOR (Channel 9 in New York), and had rebanded the station as "Universal 9."
Also, according to this, former NY mayor Rudy Giuliani once criticized Universal Studios for the King Kong feature, which included graffiti painted on fake subway cars.
The attraction (built in 1986) won't be rebuilt, the L.A. Times reports, but instead be replaced by an all-new feature.
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