Back to Seuss

During the year that I spent with Universal Studios, Japan, the Islands of Adventure project had moved into the field and into construction. Seuss architecture was very challenging and art director Gary Lee had long wanted me to assist him with it. I couldn’t relocate along with the project because I had not been figured into the original budget. Now, a year later, things looked different and I was asked to rejoin the project.

I was faced with a dilemma: stay with Universal Studios, Japan and fully realize the Snoopy Studios project; or go to Florida to finish up on Islands of Adventure and Seuss. It was not an easy decision but I knew that there was much more talent available in Hollywood (where we were designing for Japan) to replace me. In fact, I had a friend that I could call upon that I knew would respect my original vision. I called on Kent Elofson to replace me with Snoopy Studios. Kent not only followed my original direction he actually made it better.

This left me free to pursue the Seuss project.

The rest of the team had been out in Florida for a year. I could only imagine how far behind I would be when I arrived and how far along the project must be by now. To my surprise what I found when I arrived was dirt.

My time had been spent much more productively in California. I had designed a whole new land for Japan while the Seuss team sat around and watched tractors push dirt (actually I know that they were working hard, it's just that there was little to show). Now it was time to dig in (so to speak) on Seuss.

The image shown here is actually about six-months after I arrived. Here the Green Eggs and Ham building is rising out of the dirt. Painters are painting the fork while a high-reach is available. Everything else is just primed. I'm standing on the ground radioing instructions to the painters and taking pictures. Of course, when I first arrived nothing was vertical.