Post #386669 by TikiTres on Thu, Jun 12, 2008 1:26 PM

OK, this is a positively ancient thread at 3 years old and the original eBay auction that was linked to is long gone, but I had to throw my 2 cents in here as I ran across this thread doing a search for TV in Dallas. As luck would have it I officed right across the street from this TV location and I most definitely can verify that there was indeed a giant tiki (looked like an Easter Island head, Moai?) out front. I passed by it daily as I drove by it to get to the office. I wish I could see the pictures that were posted in the eBay auction as I could have verified whether or not it was the same tiki, but more than likely it was. Even though TV was closed by then, the tiki remained there for years. I remember quite well that it did not have any paint on it that was visible from the street, so the paint mentioned above was probably added later.

There, I've made my contribution to the historical record on the original TV tiki in Dallas :)

EDIT- well I just noticed the history of this moai was already discussed in another TV thread, and it sounds like it's not the same thing that was in the above eBay auction. I'll paste the info here since I bothered to bump this ancient thread to the top:

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The Moai

The moai that once guarded over the old Trader Vics remained out front for many, many years until one day it just disappeared. Where it went and what happened to it remained a mystery for a few years until this article appeared in the January 2005 issue of D Magazine:

Joe Hunt was the man who took the tiki. As a kid, his father used to take him to Trader Vic’s. So the local financial consultant offered to buy it from the hotel for $2,400. But then things got weird. The hotel—which was owned by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s organization and which was part of his plan to establish peace on earth through transcendental meditation—backed out of the deal. Hunt sued. The Maharishi’s people never showed up in court. And a judge awarded the tiki to Hunt, who carted it off to a friend’s warehouse in Ennis.

But then the hotel sued Hunt, and Hunt was forced to return the tiki to the hotel’s heavies in May 2003. But the statue never made it to its rightful post, and its whereabouts remained a mystery to all but a few of the Maharishi’s operatives.

After the purchase of the hotel in 2004, the original plan was to restore the moai and auction it off with the proceeds going to Special Olympics. Formikahini and I inquired about the status of the moai while talking to Rusty Fenton the night of the mock service. He told us what they would really like to do is return it to the front of Trader Vic’s once the restoration is complete. He then added, “Would you like to see it?”

We were then led out of Trader Vic’s and to the “secret location” where the moai is currently being worked on. Its condition for the most part is not great, and its future still uncertain, but THERE IT WAS...a giant 3000lb piece of tiki history laying anesthetized and awaiting surgery.

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[ Edited by: TikiTres 2008-06-12 13:56 ]