Olympics Spaceship, Universal’s King Kong : For Sequoia Creative, Offbeat Jobs Are Its Meat and Potatoes

Some 45 miles northeast of the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur is a 348-acre plot in an untamed area inhabited mostly by tigers, monkeys and a clan of elephants so surly that one reportedly trampled two men to death this year.

Big plans await the tropical jungle. Soon the thick cluster of 100-foot-high, 1,000-year-old banyan trees will give way to a Western town, a stone castle seemingly out of 15th-Century Europe and one of the world’s most modern roller coasters. A Malaysian consortium is building Samaworld there, a $125-million theme park and resort that by 1990 is to be that Southeast Asian country’s Disneyland.

Planning the park is the job of Sequoia Creative, a Sun Valley company founded by former Walt Disney executives Dave Schweninger, Thomas Reidenbach and Robert Gurr, for whom such unusual assignments are routine. The trio previously made the spaceship that hovered over the closing ceremonies at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, spider-like creatures that singer Michael Jackson ordered for his 1984 concert tour and a seven-ton King Kong for the Universal Studios tour that has lifelike movements and banana-scented breath.

This week, an illuminated, spinning star that Sequoia built is being installed at a new Hard Rock Cafe in Dallas, where every night at midnight it will descend from the ceiling amid smoke and the sounds of the late guitarist Jimi Hendrix playing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Next month, a 6,000-square-foot, Space Age miniature golf course that the company designed is scheduled to open near Brisbane, Australia, in a former movie theater.

Founded in 1984, Sequoia has grown into a $2-million-a-year company that specializes in translating offbeat ideas for entertainment and leisure attractions into reality.

For years, the three partners translated Walt Disney’s ideas. Sequoia Vice President Reidenbach, 45, who left Disney in 1973 after eight years, helped plan Disney World in Florida. Sequoia’s president, Schweninger, 52, who left Disney in 1981 after 20 years, helped put together such attractions as the Pirates of the Caribbean and It’s A Small World at Disneyland. Gurr, 55, a Sequoia vice president, was one of Disney’s engineering whizzes, designing such projects as Disneyland’s monorail before leaving in 1981 after 27 years.

Since establishing Sequoia, the three partners’ probably have made their biggest bang with the 30-foot King Kong the firm built for the Universal Studios tour that opened this spring. As part of the tour, visitors riding in trams see a New York City street scene while a videotape shows television newsman Sander Vanocur warning of danger, a helicopter crashes and a grafitti-covered subway train lies in ruin.

Kong awaits at the Brooklyn Bridge, appearing to writhe in anger as the tram approaches, his movements powered by compressed air. Four large pumps and 12 smaller ones, including seven for the plastic lips alone, make his face twist and wrinkle.

“We told them it had to stand up to very close scrutiny with the face six feet from the audience. It had to have different moves like snarls, nose flares, raised eyebrows, scowls, flashing eyes and hot, moist breath with a banana smell,” said Barry Upson, vice president for planning and development with MCA Recreation, which planned the project.

Other projects also have been challenging for Sequoia and its 14 permanent employees. In Malaysia, Sequoia is designing the Samaworld park to stand on a 5,500-foot mountain sloping at 20-degree to 30-degree angles.