NEW YORK–The Big Apple felt the ground shake Saturday evening when filmmaker Carl Denham’s alleged 8th Wonder of the World, escaped from its Broadway exhibit and rampaged across town.
The exhibit, a fifty-foot tall gorilla, broke free of its chains after being accosted by a veritable phalanx of photographers.
Arnie Arnold, an Associated Press photographer, was quick to defend the incessant use of flash. “Who could predict that tormenting an untamed behemoth with strobe photography would result in total chaos? It was practically unforeseeable,” Arnold argued. “And it’s not like the theatre was well-lit.”
After disembowelling the pit orchestra and several high-profile donors, the beast stormed out of the theatre and across Times Square. Pursued by determined but largely ineffective police cars, it destroyed an elevated train full of nuns and kidnapped an actress associated with Denham’s exhibit.
The beast carried its feminine cargo up to the very top of the Empire State Building, where it swatted at planes launched from the local air force reserve before toppling to the streets below.
“’Twas beauty killed the beast,” Denham was quoted as saying at the scene. “That or the 1,300-foot drop. We’ll never know for certain.”