Kongfrontation


Kongfrontation was a ride at the Universal Studios Florida theme park, in Orlando, Florida, the main attraction in the park's New York section. It opened as one of the original attractions at the park on June 7, 1990 and was closed on September 8, 2002; Revenge of the Mummy opened in its place on May 21, 2004. Kongfrontation was based on the 1976 King Kong film and King Kong Encounter, an extinct attraction on the long running Studio Tour at Universal Studios Hollywood. The main plot of the ride revolves around the authorities attempting to evacuate civilians away from Kong's rampage and to Roosevelt Island.

Ride

Queue

Guests entered the attraction through a facade recreating Pennsylvania Station as it appeared in New York City at the beginning of the 20th century. Within the six-story walls of the massive show building, guests would find themselves in an elaborate production set simulating a New York City Subway station, Manhattan's Roosevelt Island Tramway station and a surrounding city block. However, the queue line would frequently be updated to include modern-day movie posters and advertisements. Overhead television monitors displayed a special WWOR-TV news report of King Kong's attack, entitled "Kong on the Loose". Real-life news anchor Rolland Smith reported that the giant ape King Kong had escaped its confines and was wreaking havoc on the streets of New York. Kong had already destroyed two elevated trains and was rapidly approaching the East River with authorities seemingly powerless to stop him. Clips from the 1976 film version of King Kong, portraying the beast's rampage, played during these newscasts, as did alerts from the Emergency Broadcast System telling everyone in the city to remain indoors due to what was lurking outside. After the TV Monitors Displayed breaking news that New York City was being attacked by a giant ape, This updating did not extend to the news reports playing on the queue line's TVs, which would show commercials for shows that were current as of the ride's 1990 opening, like Out of This World and The New Lassie. As the guests proceeded through the line queue, they would continually hear about King Kong's location along with his path of destruction. By the end of Kongfrontation's run guests were bombarded with three decades at once. The queue made its way up a long ramp and ended at the elevated Manhattan station of the Roosevelt Island Tramway.

Ride

Upon arriving at the station, guests boarded a large, open-air aerial tram vehicle. There, a live guide aboard the tram informed them that they were being evacuated off of Manhattan Island and over to Roosevelt Island during Kong's attack. The tram's radio was tuned to the police emergency frequency so that guests could be informed of Kong's location in the city. The giant ape was destroying the city, he destroyed two elevated trains, buildings, houses and he was knocking down anything in his path. Authorities could do nothing to stop him, The tram traveled above the streets of downtown New York City where guests could view Kong's path of destruction. There was a water geyser from a broken fire hydrant, broken steam pipes, crashed and overturned cars, and a subway train partly derailed from its elevated track. A police chopper described the scene around the tram over the radio, alerting that Kong was approaching the tramway and that he was grabbing a power pole. Kong's silhouette could briefly be seen as a spotlight shone on a building ahead of the tram. As the tram passed the power pole, it tipped over and its electrical transformer exploded, unleashing a shower of sparks and fire, which ignited the derailed elevated subway train.
Rounding a bend and nearing the East River, the tram encountered Kong hanging from the Queensboro Bridge. A police helicopter hovering nearby opened fire on Kong to protect the approaching tram. Kong retaliated, pounding the roof of tram and sending the chopper crashing and exploding into the bridge. Narrowly escaping the attack, the tram finally crossed over the river to Roosevelt Island, the sound of giant footsteps seeming to follow. A second helicopter hovering nearby shone a bright searchlight directly at the tram, inhibiting the view of what lay ahead. The tram operator urged the chopper to turn off the light, and in doing so, revealed that Kong had cut the tram off. He proceeded to grab, lift and subsequently drop the tram after being fired upon by the circling police helicopter. After narrowly escaping the enraged beast for a second time, small television monitors lowered from the tram's ceiling and guests watched themselves on the ride as part of a breaking news report as the tram safely made its way into the Roosevelt Island station. Although Kong was never actually defeated, the news report indicated that he was making his way away from New York City, thereby alleviating the threat.

Photograph

Guests exited the attraction and traveled down a series of ramps into a King Kong themed gift shop called Safari Outfitters Ltd. There, a Kodak photo opportunity booth was located where guests could pose with King Kong, who appeared to grip them in front of a Queensboro Bridge backdrop.

Construction and design

The attraction was based on the 1976 film remake of King Kong and was designed by Totally Fun Company and MCA Planning and Development. Two King Kong animatronic figures were built for the attraction and were scaled to be tall with an arm span of. The one used for the "street sequence" weighed approximately, while a lighter figure, that weighed approximately, was used for the "bridge sequence" of the ride. The Kongs were built to be both analog and digital, giving them the ability to perform sixty two separate functions. A "smellitzer" device was constructed to give the Kong figures "banana breath," which was emitted during roars at the riders.
Kongfrontation's ride system was developed by Arrow Dynamics, who subcontracted the manufacturing out to Intermountain Lift, Inc. The soundstage show building covered an area of and a height of six floors. The slabs used to construct the exterior walls of the building are the largest of its kind ever used for construction. To make the city setting appear as realistic as possible, fifty facades were modeled after Manhattan's Lower East Side circa 1976. News reports from the TV station WWOR-TV were integrated into the ride and queue line as MCA/Universal owned the station at the time the attraction was designed. The helicopters that were used in the ride were molded from actual helicopters and were true to size.
Replicating the newscasts from WWOR, the video in the queue monitors was real; production for the audio in the ride work and pre-show videos was handled by John Miceli, Tony Miceli, David Kneupper; Stan Winston; at the time with Magic Lantern Productions and later Soundelux, who contracted all audio and video design for the ride. Since WWOR had passed from the prior corporate owners to MCA/Universal, there were still conflicts in the prior audio from broadcast use, as it was not cleared for location-based entertainment use, and the script was stylized for the ride experience. The announcer for the script as the WWOR reporter was provided by voiceover talent Ron Knight, who also provided voice work for many of the voices of the chopper pilots, radio dispatch, sheriffs and other characters, as well as voice-over work for two of the other premiere attractions, E.T. Adventure, and Jaws. Knight also became the national announcer for Nickelodeon for all show promotion and network branding announcements originating from the Nickelodeon Studios facilities inside the park.

History

Originally a scene for the Universal Studios Hollywood Studio Tram Tour, Kongfrontation has been credited as being the catalyst for the Universal Studios Florida project. Universal originally envisioned the attraction as the crown jewel of the Florida park. While the attraction drew substantial crowds, it had an unreliable track record due to the complex special effects involved. Universal engineers attempted several times to improve reliability, which ultimately required removing functionality of Kong by limiting his movements and some of the background effects. The tram operators at this attraction would usually have a playful rivalry with the skippers at the Jaws attraction, sometimes challenging each other to see which attraction could get more guests.
Kongfrontation officially closed on September 8, 2002. There has never been a solid reason given by Universal for the closure, although it is speculated that high staffing, operations and maintenance costs were the main reasons. The attraction joined a list of original Universal Studios Florida attractions that have since been retired and replaced, including Ghostbusters Spooktacular, The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera,, Nickelodeon Studios, An American Tail Theatre, The Wild Wild Wild West Stunt Show, Dynamite Nights Stunt Spectacular,, and Jaws.
On May 6, 2015, after a 13-year absence, Universal announced that King Kong would finally be returning to the Universal Orlando Resort in the summer of 2016 with the opening of an all new attraction at Islands of Adventure called .

Other uses

During Halloween Horror Nights II at the park, the attraction was converted into an attraction known as Tramway of Doom, which featured appearances by the character Darkman. Guests were also permitted to walk on the ground during, in a show titled The Oozone Fright Club, where guests entered an employees only area of the queue line for the show, and then had to exit to the ground where another haunted maze awaited.
The first street scene of the attraction was used as the Doom City Battlezone on the martial arts television show WMAC Masters