TOURISM

Museum Opening Delayed: Another tourist attraction that was scheduled to open in Orange County earlier this summer will not do so until late next month.

The owner of the Movieland Wax Museum in Buena Park has been trying to complete the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum, which is being built in a renovated pet shop near Movieland.

“Inside, the show is just about finished,” owner Ronald Fong said. “The outside is a month behind.”

Fong had hoped to open the museum by the Fourth of July to capitalize on the summer tourist trade, but construction delays have pushed back the opening to Sept. 26.

Fong said he’s not too disappointed about missing the planned opening date. Summer tourism has been off sharply in Orange County, he noted, “so if we had to miss one (summer), this was the one to miss.”

The museum will feature human and natural oddities. It will house the crushed car in which Buck Helm survived for several days trapped on a collapsed freeway in Oakland after last year’s San Francisco earthquake.

The museum also will feature a replica of the headstone on the grave of the late Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny and dozens of other cartoon characters. It reads: “That’s all, folks!”