THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, June 3, 1995 TAG: 9506030290
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: By MARK MOBLEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WILLIAMSBURG LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
Her fearlessness is old news. Comedian Paula Poundstone has braved live television, Republican conventioneers and acting with Mark Harmon.
But Friday she faced dancing firefighters, a rapping dragon and the least scary part of Busch Gardens' newest thrill machine. Poundstone appeared for the grand opening of Escape from Pompeii, a water ride modeled after the Italian port city buried by volcanic matter in the year 79.
The ride, which opened April 29 at the Europe-styled theme park, is a brief but memorable trip in a boat past fire, through mysterious rumbling and underneath teetering beams and statuary. It is not for those sensitive to noise, heat or the perils of household renovation.
Poundstone rode only up the first hill. ``Then a guy would take me off and walk me down because pregnant and elderly women aren't allowed on the ride.'' When asked which she was, she answered: ``Elderly.''
Escape from Pompeii was to have been unveiled to the media April 28, but the Oklahoma City bombing made a delay seem appropriate. Park officials decided to link the grand opening with a campaign for fire safety, a valuable service given the constant threat of flaming lava on the Peninsula.
Poundstone arrived as part of a short play enacted by a park executive and the president of the International Association of Fire Chiefs. She did not pop out of the 5-foot-tall smoke detector that firefighters carried to the ride's entrance. She did ride in a historic fire truck, accompanied by actual Virginia firefighters.
``My career is just sailing right along,'' she said to the assembled reporters. After some dialogue with an actor playing a botanist, she stood by while Dumphrey the Dragon delivered a fire safety rap that included the lines ``we can do a lot to help these masters prevent those fires and avoid disasters.''
Behind the dragon the 30 firefighters danced gamely. Had they been joined by 30 cowboys, 30 construction workers, 30 soldiers and 30 Native Americans, they would have had something. They danced away to the chant, ``Whoop! Safety first!''
``I've not been to Pompeii,'' Poundstone said after the pageant. ``I was in Rome once. A friend of mine was supposed to meet me and stood me up. I was stuck there looking at the statues, and it was almost identical to this. It was not as close to England, and the accents here are not as thick.''
Poundstone saw a future in the skit about the opening of the ride. ``It's a one-act and we're just in the off-Broadway thing right now. We just did a backers' audition.''
Among Poundstone's more realistic projects are an upcoming HBO special and her position as contributing editor of Mother Jones magazine. She is also foster mother of a 1-year-old girl. She could not release the girl's name for legal reasons, but said, ``we call her Madam Justice, to prepare her for her eventual Supreme Court appointment.'' ILLUSTRATION: SCOTT K. BROWN
Paula Poundstone, right, rides with Virginia fire chiefs to the top
of the Escape from Pompeii ride at Busch Gardens.
by CNB