Word: boulder
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Mork & Mindy seems an unlikely bet for such exaltation: the program is fundamentally a retread of such tired sitcoms as My Favorite Martian and Bewitched. It tells the story of Mork (Williams), an alien eggplanted, so to speak, from the planet Ork, who settles in Boulder, Colo., with a winsome ingenue, Mindy (Pam Dawber). The secret of the program's runaway success is Williams. He is not only an inspired clown but also a perfect entertainer for TV's mass audience. Mork has the innocence and enthusiasm of a toddler discovering the world. But he is one toddler...
...that it takes five Southern Californians to unscrew a light bulb, four of whom share the experience. Thus it was on the hills above Malibu Beach, where the experience shared over the past three weeks was a construction crew's herculean effort to remove a 116-ton boulder that had perched over a row of fancy houses lining the Pacific Coast Highway...
Film Producer Robert Radnitz, who lives in one of the threatened houses, first spotted the boulder. Partially dislodged by a landslide, it had come to rest 200 ft. above his house. After vainly asking local officials to get rid of it, he finally sent an angry telegram to Governor Jerry Brown. The state thereupon declared an emergency, shut down five miles of the highway, and hired a Long Beach construction company for $97,000 to haul the boulder away...
...easy. The boulder couldn't simply be pushed down the hill without endangering the houses below. Bulldozers were used as anchors and pulley cables were attached to them. A net made of cables was dropped over the rock, but one of them broke. Then a helicopter replaced this cable and tried to envelop the rock in the net, so it could be slowly eased down. Fire hoses were brought to the scene to soften the ground under the rock...
...this time, the boulder had become the star attraction of Southern California. Rock watchers came chuffing up in running suits and shower shoes. Others paddled to the scene in kayaks. Cars blocked the highway for miles. Catering wagons rolled in with sandwiches and soft drinks...