Twitter A-Buzz With "Sallywood" Speculation, Hollywood Residents "Enraged"

Yesterday began the Hollywood sign’s extreme makeover. Early Thursday morning tourists were seen snapping photos of the sign, but not because of its historical implications. The sign read “Sollywood,” thanks to what appears to be a bed sheet with the letter “S” painted in red. Later in the day an “A” joined the party turning the sign into Sallywood. Naturally, Twitter has become an all out bitch-fest, with tweets complaining about the obstructing fog, or reading “sollywood?! WTF?!.” Slow your roll everyone, the recent transformation isn’t the work of Banksy or some other “anarchist punk,” but rather a campaign who’s goal is to raise enough dough to buy the sign’s surrounding land and prevent any further housing developments. A private investor, who owns much of the land surrounding the H, has agreed to sell his 138-acre plot to preservationists if they can raise a cool 11.7 mill. by April. In order to cover costs of the campaign, however, preservationists will also need to raise an extra 800 grand.

NBC L.A. broke news of the sign’s transformation earlier today, explaining that by the end of Thursday it would read “SAVE THE PEAK,” a slogan which will be in place until next Tuesday. A poll on the site quotes 38% of locals as “enraged,” although I am unsure if this rage is directed at the threat of development, or the campaign to save the land.

Erected in 1923, the Hollywood sign originally read “Hollywoodland,” an advertisement for Harvey Chandler’s upscale housing development to be built around the sign. When the real estate development plan went wayward, the sign had already become an icon of the surrounding town. The “-land” was removed and the Hollywood sign became a landmark for the town, rather than an advertisement. Since then, the sign has been no stranger to controversy, with the first major event taking place in the early 1940′s, when the letter H collapsed. Some accounts blame sign caretaker Albert Hothe, stating his drunkenly crashed his 1928 Ford Model A into the H, rendering the sign “OLLYWOOD.” Others believe it simply fell over from wear and tear.

The first intentional alteration of the sign occurred in 1976, when it read “HOLLYWeeD;” a stunt perpetuated by Danny Finegood as both a celebration of California’s relaxed marijuana laws and a college project, for which he received an A. He is also allegedly responsible for “HOLYWOOD” in April, 1977 for Easter Sunday, “OLLYWOOD” to protest Oliver North’s testimony during the Iran-Contra hearings, and “OIL WAR,” depicting his opposition to the Gulf War in 1991. The sign even got caught up with the UCLA/USC rivalry; it read “USCWOOD” in 1987 and “GO UCLA” in 1993.

The only successful tagging of the sign was accomplished by Seen, in 1985. During a trip to L.A. in 1984, Seen “noticed the Hollywood sign” with it’s “huge, gigantic” letters and “realized it was Los Angeles’ pride and joy” and a prime canvas for a Seen piece. After gathering 50 cans of paint and some gardening tools to trim the surrounding brush, Seen spent 12 hours painting the two L’s and Y of the sign. He was nearly busted when police helicopters spotted him, but managed to hide in the bushes for a few hours before finishing his work.

L.A. law enforcement has since wised up, patrolling the surrounding area and erecting a fence, though I’m sure that further alterations to the sign are inevitable. Kesha, that awful girl who spells her name with a dollar sign and looks like the love-child of Lady Gaga and Chewbacca, has also tried to ca$h in on the Hollywood sign. A YouTube video of her and her “drunk friends” vandalizing the sign to read “KE$HAWOOD” has since been denounced as a fake. If you need a good laugh, watch the idiocy unfold below.