HOW KONG MEASURES UP

How does one measure the “new” King Kong? Let us count the ways:

Height: 30 feet-- without legs (he’s seen standing in water holding up the Brooklyn Bridge). Weight: 6.5 tons (Universal estimates that if he were real--and this size--he would weigh about 32 tons).

Head: 10 feet high.

Teeth: 32.

Fur: 660 pounds (sewn in place by nine costumers).

10 watts of “growl” (enough to power a campus radio station).

Number of people who built Kong: 40.

Time involved: just over three years.

Cost of entire project, including sound stage: $6.5 million.

Size of sound stage: 26,000 square feet (Universal thinks it may be the biggest in the world).

Computerized movements: 29.

Computer commands: 16 analogs, 16 digitals in .25 megabytes.

Explosions during show: 5.

Vehicles crashed: two cars; one el-train; one full-size chopper (which cools within five minutes of flames going out, as required by the fire department; a second chopper buzzes overhead, but escapes the beast’s wrath).

Newsman glimpsed on a TV set “covering” the Kong story: Sander Vanocur.

Length of show: 2 minutes, 40 seconds.

Time of reset: 3 seconds (!).

Number of people per tram: 175.

Estimated number of visitors who will see Kong in first year: 3.5 million.