Designer Times
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But the UST guys were so impressed with what they saw and heard (we didn't try to move the mouth for them) that they gave us a couple of months more time to make it work as promised. No chew outs.....just keep going folks. Amazing relief all around. I was so impressed by their belief that King Kong would ultimately live. Now for the re-start.

I was sort of told "if you're so smart, let's see you do it". I formed a five-person team, told them we will all work together, no one will pull rank, even if I am a Company Vice-President. We will see what we can figure out every day, one day at a time. We'll meet every morning to see what we learned the previous day, then plan the day's efforts. We would not "order materials to do what we want", but try things and let the materials tell us what works and what doesn't.

First thing is to dump the heavy thick skin. As a skin gets bigger, it must stretch two ways, and the power required goes out of sight. Why not use a very thin skin and just let it roll and fold without stretching? Only need a little power. Why not put a light 1" layer of soft foam under the skin to minimize wrinkles? Put the whole thing on a 3" foam support? Then cut slots in the foam lattice-like to allow wrinkle-free bunching? (Later we learned that Gorillas do have thick fatty layers under their external skin). Light weight lips? Try 4" diameter vacuum hose. Support this with 1/2" truck air brake hose connected to air cylinders with little rod ends. Piggy back two simple air cylinders together controlled digitally (on-off) rather than expensive servovalves. Arrange several of these around the lips to obtain a great snarl look.

Every day we built a few more bits and pieces and tested the actions. Each morning we re-grouped and designed a bit more. The duck quack mouth corner situation was solved by floating the mouth corners on a tensioned side bungy cord bridle. We added a nostril flare device and floated the whole three-layer facial skin deal on the upper mouth frame to allow a natural "flopping flesh" look. To get a look of anger when Kong opens his mouth, I made the portion of the anatomically rigid skull into a moving "compound mouth". This perfectly simulated the bunching up of facial muscles in a life like manner. Technically wrong but it works great.

The big lesson learned was that when poking into to new areas, executive order-giving based on past experience might not be the best direction. We found that allowing everyone to think together and experiment bit by bit got results. The upshot was that the King Kong head came out a lot lighter than we had figured.

The costume folks dressed out the face skin into the hard skull and fur covering with a bajillion hand planted whiskers. The plastic guys built the lightest teeth, gums, palates possible, even adding a flexy uvula in the throat. By the time the cosmetic artists had Kong's makeup done, The King looked absolutely real.....and scary too! During a night test session, an employee's little boy was looking into the King's throat as the animator moved the mouth. Poor kid ran and would never get close ever again. Man.....we're gettin' there. King Kong IS ALIVE.

Then came the big night. The UST guys piled into the tram seat, the lights dimmed and the show started. Train, helicopter, voices. Kong was asleep. One eye opened just slightly, then the other. Kong saw the Universal Suits and snapped wildly at them. They all jumped back.....horrible bad breath. Kong continued his tirade for a minute or so, then went back to sleep. Silence. Then applause from the Universal Executives. Man-o-man what a relief. They believed in us, and we found a break-thru way into the world of super giant animated figures.

But it would be three years before Universal would go ahead with their full blown King Kong Attraction at Universal Studios Hollywood. Meanwhile, Animated Show Productions would become Applied Entertainment Systems only to later declare bankruptcy. Our folks would re-form as The Phoenix Group, 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. In late 1985 Sequoia and Universal would team up on King Kong again.....but that's a whole Œnother story.

oOo

Next month: Michael Jackson - 1984 Victory Tour Animated Lighting EFX