First Mouse, Now Bugs Beset MCA : Entertainment: In Florida, the Universal Studios theme park competes with Disney and struggles with faulty equipment. The rocky beginning ups the ante in a high-stakes gamble.

Six weeks after Universal Studios opened its $630-million theme park here, the much-ballyhooed earthquake isn’t shaking, 37-foot-tall King Kong doesn’t roar and the three-ton shark from “Jaws” is only working part time.

Indeed, some of the most fearsome sounds coming from the park these days are the groans of disappointed tourists who step up to the ticket booths to find posted a list of the day’s non-working rides. “We might have turned around and not come in,” said Jackie Garcia, a school teacher on vacation from Westminster, who paid $55.12 in admission fees for herself and 10-year-old daughter Daniella last week. “But we very much wanted to see a Nickelodeon taping.”

Universal is apologizing for the non-functioning rides by handing every paying customer a free pass for a second visit. And an advertising campaign--which for months before the June 7 opening heavily promoted Kongfrontation and Earthquake--has been withdrawn. “We prefer to be upfront and honest and let them know (these rides) aren’t working,” says Steven W. Lew, president of Universal Studios Florida. He blamed the shutdowns on computer software problems and predicted that all rides would be up and running by the end of July.

Lew admits that negative publicity has hurt attendance. But, he insists, “We expect to meet our goal of between 5 million and 6 million paid visitors within the first year.

“Twelve months is a long time, and this market is somewhat seasonal,” Lew adds. “We feel that when King Kong starts growling, when that banana breath starts blowing . . . we are going to hit a high stride.”

For Universal, the rocky beginning has only upped the ante in its high-stakes gamble here in central Florida, a once-swampy plain that has been paved over and turned into theme park heaven in the 19 years since Disney World opened. With its Magic Kingdom, Epcot Center and Disney-MGM Studios, Mickey is clearly the mouse that rules. With more 12 million visitors a year, the Orlando Chamber of Commerce unabashedly calls this area “the world’s No. 1 tourist attraction.” Most of the 12 million are lured by Disney.

But also mining gold from the steady stream of tourists into greater Orlando are some 50 other attractions, ranging from Sea World to Tupperware’s Museum of Historic Food Containers; up to 4,000 restaurants, and hotels with 72,000 rooms to rent. Located just 12 miles up the freeway from Disney, Universal aims to quickly replace Anheuser-Busch’s Sea World as the area’s second most popular tourist attraction.

Jay S. Stein, president of the recreation services group of MCA Inc., Universal’s parent, has said the success of its Florida venture is critical to the conglomerate’s plans to wage studio wars in Europe and Japan, where Disney has already established beachheads. At 444 acres, Universal Studios Florida is more than three times larger than the year-old Disney-MGM, it offers more attractions and working sound stages, and MCA and its partner, Britain’s Rank Organization, have raised the promotional budget to $150 million for the first year alone.

Disney officials have refrained from public comment on the glitches that have haunted Universal’s first six weeks. Still, it is possible to imagine them smiling along with other Orlando residents over jokes at Universal’s expense. “I’ll take the sixth caller,” said WOMX disc jockey Dave Kelly the other day in promoting a radio station giveaway. “Win a trip to L.A. and a visit to Universal Studios Hollywood, where all the rides work.”

Despite the advisory at the ticket windows, few who drive in and pay $3 to park balk at coming through the gates, according to Lew. Although 10% of the opening-day crowd of 10,000 demanded and received refunds, most subsequent visitors apparently find enough inside to make the day worthwhile.

On a recent Friday, for example, Jaws was on the prowl, despite a front gate warning to the contrary. “We tell people it’s not working so they won’t be disgusted when it shuts down,” a smiling guide named Carolyn told surprised visitors.

After boarding boats for what is described as a peaceful cruise through a New England harbor, passengers are rocked and “attacked” by a mechanical shark as the captain screams “Mayday” into a radio transmitter and eventually dispatches Jaws with a burst of machine gun fire that sends a plume of blood-red water into the air.

If more amusing than outright thrilling, the Jaws ride is technically impressive. The shark circles with only its fin visible, disappears, then suddenly lunges from the water, teeth bared, to within inches of the captain as the boat tilts to the side. The boathouse in which the passengers take refuge at one point, the buildings and details of the harbor itself look movie-set perfect.

Also effective--and proving popular--is E.T. Adventure, where, after a filmed welcome from creator Steven Spielberg, visitors climb into tram-like cars that gently rise through a misty pine forest and outrace pursuing police cars before ascending into the heavens as the extraterrestrial goes for home.

Other attractions involve the audience in filmmaking techniques--editing a mock episode of “Murder, She Wrote,” for example, or being blitzed by special effects from Alfred Hitchcock movies. Also on the sprawling lot are dozens of realistic street sets, 40 restaurants (including a Hard Rock Cafe and a replica of Mel’s Diner from “American Graffiti”), several working production studios and a slew of souvenir shops.

Universal has said it needs to average 16,400 visitors a day to meet its first-year attendance goals and at least half that number to break even. Lew won’t give out figures. But with a park capacity of 40,000, there is plenty of room to walk down Hollywood Boulevard and pose for pictures with employees dressed up like Frankenstein’s monster, Mae West and the Ghostbusters.

“Local residents are saying that they won’t go to Universal until everything is up and running,” says John Rutherford of the Orlando-Orange County (Fla.) Visitors and Convention Bureau. “They can wait. But tourists sometimes can’t.”

Wanda McCoy is a good example. On vacation from York, Pa., she showed up last week with her 10-year-old nephew Matthew McWilliams. “I was disappointed when I found out Kong and Earthquake weren’t working,” she said. “Really, I felt cheated more than anything.”

Nonetheless, McCoy and her nephew went in and were pleasantly surprised. “We got on Jaws, and that was unexpected. And there is a lot to do,” she said.

Californian Jackie Garcia, 36, also said she was satisfied. She and her daughter sat in the studio audience for a taping of “Family Double Dare,” then stood in long afternoon queues to see several other attractions. “There is much more to it than we have” at the original Universal Studios, which she visits once or twice a year, she said. “It’s a shame that everything isn’t working, and I think they have a ways to go in people-moving, but it’s still a full day.”

Construction barricades and the sounds of hammering and power saws throughout the park are only the most obvious signs of coming attractions. Next year, a ride based on the film “Back to the Future” is to open, and film and television production is due to increase.

In the meantime, employees are being schooled in the “Universal Approach” with memos that outline ways to handle unhappy customers. “Please do not agree with the guest that we should not have opened on June 7th as advertised,” went one written instruction. “We couldn’t allow them to arrive only to find our gates locked.”

Former Disney employee Randy Reardon, now a theme park consultant for Steve Baker & Associates, an Orlando marketing group, says: “I have the feeling that Universal is pulling it off. At Disney-MGM, you’re at a park with a studio theme. At Universal it’s a feeling you’re at a motion picture studio with attractions.

“There’s a lot of word of mouth saying, ‘Yeah, Universal’s good, but it’s not a full show.’ And that may make people hesitant. But from a technical standpoint, they’re setting new standards.”

Harold Vogel, a media analyst with Merrill Lynch Capital Markets, says: “There is no sense of panic at Universal. There are some near-term difficulties, obviously. They were in a hurry to capture the summer season, and they didn’t get all the bugs out. But this park is going to be here 50, 100 years, so the problems of the summer are not so significant.”