User:SkullIsland/Sandbox/King Kong Encounter

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King Kong Encounter (also marketed as King Kong, King Kong: The Ride, and Kongfrontation[1]) was a ride at the Studio Tour at Universal Studios Hollywood which opened June 14, 1986 and was destroyed by the June 1, 2008 Universal Studios fire. The ride was later replaced by King Kong: 360 3-D in 2010. It was based off of the 1976 King Kong remake. A standalone version of the tour experience, keeping the Kongfrontation name, would be an opening day attraction at Universal Studios Florida in 1990.

Summary

Entering a soundstage in the New York Street area of the backlot, the trams find themselves in a night of horrors in New York City's Lower East Side. A TV in one of the apartments flickers to life as an emergency news broadcast covers King Kong's rampage through the city. Switching over to helicopter reporter Kelly King reporting on Kong's attack on a nearby L-train, she spies our tram and warns us to get out of the area before a swat from Kong knocks the helicopter from the sky, with the flaming wreck falling into view of the tram. Turning a corner past the damaged L-train, a police helicopter can be seen firing on Kong, who is gripping onto the cables of the Brooklyn Bridge which the trams need to cross. As the trams pass through and exit the soundstage, Kong shakes the bridge and roars, with nearby gas tanks launching fireballs around him.

Cast

  • Rolland Smith - news anchor (1990-2008)
  • Sander Vanocur - news anchor (1988-1990)
  • Sheree J. Wilson - Kelly King
  • Tress McNeille - Kelly King (voice redub)

Development

Development of a King Kong attraction began in 1983 when Universal was looking to bring Kong to the Hollywood tour and their planned Florida theme park. When the Florida park went onto the backburner, the California version continued on ahead. At some point during the project's development, the Kong scene was to be more of a passive show experience, with storyboards existing for a show stop focused around a sacrifice to Kong on Skull Island, with the gate opening to reveal the animatronic Kong.[2] However, the desire to place the Kong stop around the Universal Backlot's New York Street area would shift the attraction to a New York setting and place guests in a more up-close and personal encounter with the giant ape, with the Brooklyn Bridge being selected as an ideal landmark for the tram to see Kong on.

The attraction operated a 7-ton, 30-foot tall King Kong animatronic, the animatronic stayed the largest and most complex animatronic for many years. Kong was designed by Disney Imagineer Bob Gurr. It was said that Kong even had banana-scented breath.

Gallery

Videos

Television commercial for the attraction
News Report segment from the attraction
King Kong Encounter segment of 1992 souvenir video with making of footage
1986 footage with Kelly King's original voice
1986 Pioneer Chicken King Kong promo commercial
2002 Christmas overlay with Santa Kong


Trivia

  • Being an iconic segment of the Universal Studios tram tour, the animatronic King Kong was prominently featured in television and film productions that incorporated the tram tour such as 1989's The Wizard and the Muppet television special Miss Piggy's Hollywood, where Kong would be voiced by Muppet performer Jerry Nelson to sing a line of "That's Entertainment".
  • King Kong was occasionally dressed up for different occasions, sporting a giant Nickelodeon cap for the first Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards in 1988 or regularly being dressed as Santa Claus for the holiday season.

References

This is a list of references for SkullIsland/Sandbox/King Kong Encounter. These citations are used to identify the reliable sources on which this article is based. These references appear inside articles in the form of superscript numbers, which look like this: [1]

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