"Top of the World Ma!"

As you may have heard, a ginourmous fire took out a large chunk of Universal Studios backlot. The above image - swiped from the New York Times - shows the towering inferno.

'Courthouse Square'*- seen in "Back to the Future", "To Kill A Mockingbird" and "Gremlins"- was destroyed in the blaze.

But the cool thing about this picture is the foreground set, featuring a wrecked suburban McMansion with the remains of an airliner in the front yard. Eagle-eyed readers will recognize this as one of the cooler sets from Speilberg's "War of the Worlds."

Why is this set still standing? Was it part of the tour? Nearby, you can see a bit of the Munsters** house. That big blue wall you see is adjacent to a parking lot that can be filled with water and used for cheapo ocean vistas like those in the 1966 "Batman" feature.

*UPDATE: Later reports indicated that the "Back to the Future" clock tower set survived
the fire.

** ERRATA: Maybe that's the "Psycho" house. Both the Munsters house and the Psycho place are still standing. I think I recognized a redressed Munsters manse in one of those annoying Fandango.com trailers.