Designer Times
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49. Universal Studios Hollywood King Kong Animated Figure

Sequoia Creative completed the successful installation of the 2010 Special Effects Show at Universal Studios Tour Hollywood (UST) during the spring of 1985. Sequoia also had several new projects in work during their first year in business. UST could now see that Sequoia was ready to tackle the long deferred King Kong Attraction and gave us the formal Request For Proposal in October 1985.

Background......Universal Studios had received fan mail addressed to King Kong year after year since the 1930's. UST had long been planning a second Studio Tour to be located in Orlando Florida not far from Walt Disney World.

A King Kong Attraction was to be a major feature of this new Florida Studio Tour. Universal's theme park design staff had requested a preliminary Conceptual Design from the Elliott Group Architects located in Costa Mesa, California. Elliott's King Kong Attraction design was submitted to Universal in April 1981.

Peter Alexander, a former WED Imagineer, became a Show Producer at Universal around this same time and later was assigned to Produce the King Kong Attraction for Universal Studios Tour Hollywood (UST). Peter and I had worked together at WED on the Tokyo Disneyland Project. At Animated Show Productions in Arleta, California, we had completed the Conan Serpent for (UST), and Universal had now decided to put King Kong in Hollywood, rather than Florida. Peter approached us to continue further with the plan the Elliott Group had come up with for King Kong.

I had become comfortable with designing the 24 foot tall Conan Serpent and was eager to try a 30 foot tall King Kong. A decision was made that prior to going ahead with the entire attraction, only King Kong's full size head would be developed as a proof of concept. This was completed in 1983 and UST would take time out think about when they might go ahead with the whole King Kong project.

Meanwhile, Animated Show Productions would become Applied Entertainment Systems only to later declare bankruptcy. Our folks would re-form as The Phoenix Group, building the Flying Saucer for the Closing Ceremonies of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games, then re-emerge in 1984 as Sequoia Creative.

Good thing Universal was taking it's fine time to decide when to go for the whole Kong. Now UST was ready to proceed, thus the formal Request For Proposal.

This RFP was for (1) 30 foot tall King Kong animated figure that Sequoia was to deliver to UST by June 1986. The complete attraction had now been designed by UST's own design group, and Sequoia would be a show element provider along with a number of other specialty contractors. We were shocked to learn that the RFP was for an up-front fixed price for the biggest animated creature in the history of the theme park business.....no experimental cost plus contract, just full risk fixed price! Egads. But all of us at Sequoia sure felt confident that we could do this monster better than anyone else in town.

We had been evolving internal estimating techniques. I had always done weight estimates on Disney ride vehicles since way back in 1955, so I was comfortable with both weight and cost estimating detail. Not just give a WAG (wild ass guess) estimate, but build up every major assembly based on individual part weight and cost. This forced the King Kong design concept to specify tons of component and process details very quickly. I had to have a specific design in mind right away so we could furnish the price to UST before they would issue a contract. My trusty new Macintosh and a spreadsheet application was my weapon of choice.

Another weapon decision was forced almost immediately. Back in the 1970's Disney tried to introduce us designers to CAD....Computer Aided Design or Drafting.....total waste of my time. I could go far faster with pencil and paper. But during the UST 2010 project, one contractor would furnish revised drafting documents almost within the hour, even if they were diagrams rather than the design for something. I was VERY impressed, so Sequoia bought an IBM computer along with some AutoCAD software. I read the instructions over the weekend, then started drafting an architectural job on the system. Next day I showed another draftsman how to get started on the new gizmo.